History Main / GenghisGambit

* In ''Anime/CodeGeass'', [[spoiler:Lelouch makes ''himself'' this threat, [[UpToEleven and then goes a step further]] by [[ThanatosGambit arranging his own assassination]], [[TheExtremistWasRight thus creating world peace]]]]. Interestingly enough, [[spoiler:his plan runs headlong into his sister Nunnaly's plan to do basically the same thing, albeit with [[TheBattlestar the Damocles]] rather than herself]]. It's InTheBlood, it seems. [[spoiler: Kallen in the epilogue suspects that he thought it would be easier if it involved a person rather than what was more of a weapon.]]

** The entire Second Valentine War in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny'' turned out to be this trope, instigated by the true BigBad [[spoiler: chairman Gilbert Durandal]]. He used Lord Djibril and the rest of Blue Cosmos as his Genghis, and they played right into his hands. Of course, it helped that they were going to do it ''anyway'' of their own accord eventually, but kickstarting things allowed [[spoiler:Durandal]] to better control the course of the war.

* The ''Literature/CodexAlera'' series [[spoiler: ends this way]], with the First Lord admitting that the [[spoiler: last]] Vord Queen is useful as a distant but major threat that motivates all of the four protagonist races to get along.

* ''Literature/TheHungerGames'': In order to rally the people in the Capitol on her side and end things early, [[spoiler: Coin blows up a bunch of children Snow gathered as human shields and makes it look like Snow is responsible. It works]].

** Then played ''very'' darkly in "The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang," when many different alien species-Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarants, Sycorax, Terilepterils, etc all team up out of fear of the being inside the Pandorica, whom they believed would end the universe, the most terrible thing in all Creation. Then it's revealed that the being inside the Pandorica...is [[spoiler: the Doctor himself.]]

* ''Theatre/{{Wicked}}'': [[spoiler:The Wizard]] explains to Elphaba that this is what he was doing by making everyone believe the Animals are evil. During "No Good Deed", Elphaba comes to the conclusion that if humanity is so bend on hating something, they shall hate ''her''. In the end, her [[spoiler: apparent]] death is what creates a time of peace in Oz under the guidance of Glinda.

** Averted. Despite a number of horrible galactic threats of all colors: hordes of AxCrazy Ork barbarians, LegionsOfHell in the form of Chaos, omnicidal implacable robots (Necrons), and the Tyranid all-consuming HordeOfAlienLocusts -- the far reasonable Eldar, Tau and Empire are still at war with one another, as well as being riven by internal conflicts. Of course considering the absurd danger most other alien species present, it's not a huge surprise that the Empire or Eldar aren't really willing to sit down and try to work out their differences. The Tau do actually "work with" other alien species occasionally, but that mostly just means enslaving and or brainwashing them.

* It looks like this trope is played with in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates''. [[spoiler: The Kingdom of Nohr is suffering of both a lack of good crops (threatening to bring up quite the famine) ''and'' inner turmoil. Therefore, King Garon stages a war against the rival kingdom of Hoshido to unite the struggling forces within his lands...]] However, it turns out that the Genghis Gambit is just a cover to keep people from questioning the ''real'' objective. [[spoiler:"King Garon" is actually DeadAllAlong and his [[DemonicPossession corpse is being used]] by the ''true'' BigBad to bring [[GreaterScopeVillain ruin to]] ''[[OmnicidalManiac both]]'' [[OmnicidalManiac kingdoms]] out of a [[SanitySlippage misguided desire]] for [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters revenge against the humans]]]].

This is not for every incidence of enemy factions teaming up against a common threat -- for that, see EnemyMine. This is for cases in which a character [[InvokedTrope invokes that trope]], deliberately creating a common threat for the warring factions to unite against. A FalseFlagOperation may help do that, and it can work well when pitched to sides engaging in a PeaceConference, since they've already both proved to be reasonable. Compare SummonBiggerFish, which usually has less altruistic intentions in mind.

** Failed and then succeeded ''by accident'' during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI: Italy tried to paint Austria-Hungary as invading barbarians ready to RapePillageAndBurn to motivate the soldiers (who still identified more by their region of birth than as Italians) into fighting, but they didn't buy it (partly because they could see ''they'' were invading Austria-Hungary), but then, after the [[CurbStompBattle rout at Caporetto]], they saw the ''civilians'' (who had bought the propaganda) running from the Austro-Hungarians (who were now actually invading), and rallied together as Italians. One year later, the Austro-Hungarian ''Empire'' had collapsed.

This is not for every incidence of enemy factions teaming up against a common threat. (See EnemyMine for that.) This is for cases in which a character [[InvokedTrope invokes that trope]], deliberately creating a common threat for the warring factions to unite against. A FalseFlagOperation may help do that, and it can work well when pitched to sides engaging in a PeaceConference, since they've already both proved to be reasonable. Compare SummonBiggerFish, which usually has less altruistic intentions in mind.

* Played somewhat straight in ''TabletopGame/BattleTech''. [[spoiler:The Word of Blake, a religious KnightTemplar faction, initially started the Jihad due to unfocused, inchoate rage against the Great Houses, since the Houses ended the Second Star League (it was utterly ineffective) and rendered Blake's prophecies on the matter null and void. The Blakists soon realize that they've attacked most of the rest of humanity, and eventually decide to make the most of it by becoming a foe so terrible that the Inner Sphere as a whole will have to unite against them.]] For the most part, [[TheExtremistWasRight it works.]] [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption For a while.]]

* In ''VideoGame/FrontMission Evolved'', Cornelius Werner tries this by [[spoiler:pointing a KillSat at all the world capitals]].

* In ''Film/{{Miracle}}'' this is implied to be the reason Coach Brooks is so hard on his players - if they're united against him, they "won't have time to fight each other."

* In ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', the BigBad plans to force America and Russia to put aside their differences and work together by [[spoiler:making it seem as if a massive AlienInvasion is imminent.]] Whether or not it works in the long run is left up to the reader.

* ''Webcomic/{{Bug|Martini}}'' argues that [[http://www.bugcomic.com/comics/peacemaker/ this is what the UN should be doing]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/JonnyQuest'' episode "The Curse of Anubis", Ahmed Kareem attempted to unify all of Egypt by engineering the theft of a statue of Anubis and trying to frame Dr. Quest and Race for the crime. Unfortunately, his plan failed when the mummy of Anubis, who knew he was behind the theft of the statue, cornered him and took him to his doom.

* In ''WesternAnimation/JonnyQuest'' episode "The Curse of Anubis", Ahmed Kareem attempted to unify all of Egypt by engineering the theft of a statue of Anubis and trying to frame Dr. Quest and Race for the crime. Unfortunately, he ended up provoking the wrath of the mummy of Anubis, who took him to his doom.

* ''{{VideoGame/Tyranny}}'' has this as part of its backstory, as part of why the invasion of the Tiers went so well was due to all the factions thinking they could stand up to Kyros alone, and were more than happy to let their neighboring nation fight alone, [[DivideAndConquer allowing Kyros to sweep through with minimal resistance]].

** He created a complicated plan involving a coalition of [[TheManBehindTheMan Men Behind Men]] working to create three "rival" empires spanning a continent between them, that are actually working together to maintain the power of their respective puppetmasters.
** On a smaller scale, Tarquin uses the threat of the other conquering nations to pressure smaller states into capitulating into his empire for their own protection. What they ''don't'' know is that his companions control those other major nations and are doing the same thing to gradually absorb every independent state in the region.

-->'''Queen Beetle:''' For Dana, this was a surprisingly noble act.\\
'''Wonderita:''' She said it's the easiest way to handle superhero bro-drama.

** Prince Cadram tries the straight version in ''Discworld/{{Jingo}}'', but makes the mistake of picking Ankh-Morpork (and therefore the aforementioned Vetinari) as the common enemy of Klatch.

** For basically everyone else though, this was subverted. One of the biggest reasons the Mongols did as much damage to civilization as they did was because every time they came around and started massacring one faction, that group would go to their normal enemies and cry, "Oh god help us, these Mongols are the most horrific thing you can possible think of! We need to join forces to stand a chance!" And without fail, nearly every time the other faction would say, "eh fuck those guys, they had it coming" on the assumption that they would ''never'' be next on the chopping block, which they almost always were. The worst instance was when the Cuman steppe peoples got devastated, took asylum in Hungary, and begged for unification to defeat the Golden Horde. The Hungarian people out of paranoia towards their former enemies stormed the castle where the Cuman king was staying and cut off his head, causing a war with the Cumans in Hungary when the Mongols were at their doorstep.
* This is how Alexander the Great united the recently conquered Greeks. He used the persians as the hated common enemy.
* This was UsefulNotes/OttoVonBismarck's favorite trick. To unify UsefulNotes/AllTheLittleGermanies into, well, Germany, he made Denmark look like an aggressor, then manipulated Austria into attacking Prussia, then France into attacking everyone. When the dust settled, Prussia had doubled in size by unifying with many of its small neighbours, France was humiliated, Austria was broken, and Denmark lost a large chunk of land.

** ''Videogame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' and associated media make Revan's plans even more labyrinthine, in terms of motivations. [[spoiler:Initially, Revan and Malak are sent back to the Republic as a vanguard force for the exiled Sith Empire. At first, they do their job dutifully, until they decide, as Sith often do, to rule for themselves. Thus, the initial assumptions that Revan's tactics were altruistically meant to prepare the Republic against the Sith Empire are actually not quite correct. They were meant to properly prepare his own Empire against his master's. Malak tossing a SpannerInTheWorks ironically becomes the one thing which redeems Revan and, arguably, saves the Republic.]] There is a ton of UnreliableNarrator and DependingOnTheAuthor at play here as well.
* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration'': This is Bian Zoldark's hidden motivation (and the game that inspired the story arc, ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars2''). He organizes the Divine Crusaders in a bid to conquer the world, figuring that either he will unite the world's powers against an alien threat -- or the world's powers will unite against ''him'', either way being better prepared for the invasion to come.\\\
He uses a double-layered version of this trope. He's able to create the Divine Crusaders in the first place thanks to a FalseFlagOperation where one of his agents provoked the aliens during a secret PeaceConference, then wipes out both forces. He then broadcasts a speech making it look like the aliens attacked government forces that were planning to surrender to them. So he makes the aliens look like the bad guys so he can unite his forces into being the bad guys to unite the world against the aliens that actually ''are'' the bad guys [[spoiler:and then the aliens at the peace conference turn out to be a different race conveniently disguised as the bad guys and oh god it's so confusing when it's compressed like this.]]

* In ''Anime/CodeGeass'', [[spoiler:Lelouch makes ''himself'' this threat, [[UpToEleven and then goes a step further]] by [[ThanatosGambit arranging his own assassination]], [[TheExtremistWasRight thus creating world peace]]]]. Interestingly enough, [[spoiler:his plan runs headlong into his sister Nunnaly's plan to do basically the same thing, albeit with [[TheBattlestar the Damocles]] rather than herself]]. It's InTheBlood, it seems. [[spoiler: Kallen suspects that he thought it would be easier if it were a person rather than what is more of a weapon.]]

* In ''Anime/CodeGeass'', [[spoiler:Lelouch makes ''himself'' this threat, [[UpToEleven and then goes a step further]] by [[ThanatosGambit arranging his own assassination]], [[TheExtremistWasRight thus creating world peace]]]]. Interestingly enough, [[spoiler:his plan runs headlong into his sister Nunnaly's plan to do basically the same thing, albeit with [[TheBattlestar the Damocles]] rather than herself]]. It's InTheBlood, it seems.

** For basically everyone else though, this was subverted. One of the biggest reasons the Mongols did as much damage to civilization as they did was because every time they came around and starting massacring one faction, that group would go to their normal enemies and cry, "Oh god help us, these Mongols are the most horrific thing you can possible think of! We need to join forces to stand a chance!" And without fail, nearly every time the other faction would say, "eh fuck those guys, they had it coming" on the assumption that they would ''never'' be next on the chopping block, which they almost always were. The worst instance was when the Cuman steppe peoples got devastated, took asylum in Hungary, and begged for unification to defeat the Golden Horde. The Hungarian people out of paranoia towards their former enemies stormed the castle where the Cuman king was staying and cut off his head, causing a war with the Cumans in Hungary when the Mongols were at their doorstep.

** Averted. Despite all the prerequisites, that is a number of horrible galactic threats of all colors: hordes of AxCrazy barbarians, LegionsOfHell, omnicidal implacable robots, and all-consuming alien locusts -- nothing seems to be able to divert the three more reasonable powers from each other's throats. Each power is also riven by internal conflicts.

** The entire Second Valentine War in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny'' turned out to be this trope, instigated by the true BigBad [[spoiler: chairman Gilbert Durandal]]. He used Lord Djibril and the rest of Blue Cosmos as his Genghis, and they played right into his hands.

* ''Film/{{Watchmen}}'': [[spoiler:Ozymandius frames Dr. Manhattan for an attack on the world's major population centers, hoping to end the Cold War and halt the march to mutual nuclear annihilation by uniting the world against Manhattan]].