History Main / SpaceColdwar

Note that this is not entirely without rational foundation, however. A technology capable of interplanetary (or even moreso) interstellar travel necessarily involves energy levels and destructive possibilities on a grand scale. MutuallyAssuredDestruction is quite plausible in a war between space-faring powers, making scenarios at least akin to the Cold War not entirely unlikely. To avoid such destructive confrontations, the powers involved may resort to engaging in {{Proxy War}}s instead.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "Phobos Rising", the two major political blocs of Earth and Mars, the Eastern Coalition and the Free Alliance, have been in a state of cold war for 30 years. The situation escalates into a nuclear war in the series' penultimate episode "The Human Factor", which takes place in 2084, and the storyline continues in the {{Series Finale}} "Human Trials".

* ''LightNovel/RebuildWorld'': The five major OneNationUnderCopyright MegaCorp are involved in one of these with one another, sending various FalseFlagOperation attacks they mask as being done by terrorists, with compensation money often being paid between them behind closed doors. The reason it stays cold is because the corporate government is an EnemyMine arrangement to keep safe from the [[TheRemnant Old World]] A.I.s and [[MechaMooks their monsters.]]
* ''LightNovel/SoImASpiderSoWhat'' has this as a background element. Various races of gods exist who often clash over control of inhabited planets. At present the true dragons, demons, and angels are in the middle of a cold war as they're too closely matched for any to risk starting a hot war. The situation has been going long enough that the younger gods have never fought in actual battles.

* ''Anime/PrincessPrincipal'' has a Steampunk Cold War. Albion, an alternate-universe Great Britain, has been divided by a revolution into the Kingdom in the east and the Commonwealth in the west. In a clear analogue to Cold War-era Berlin, the [[TheGreatWall Great Wall]] separating the two nations runs very close to the royal capital of London, which has become the battleground of both nations' spies.

* ''Series/TheExpanse'': The series starts with a cold war between Earth and the smaller, but more technologically advanced, Martian forces. The "third world" asteroid belt is exploited and oppressed by both factions, but the balance of power shifts more evenly when all three obtain the protomolecule.

*** The Sphere-Builders at least were given a very clear reason for their participation in this war. At some future date (possibly the 26th Century) they invaded the galaxy from their "trans-dimensional realm" (read:alternate universe) but were defeated by the Federation. Having lost the conventional war, they joined the Temporal Cold War to try to prevent the Federation from ever forming which would ensure their eventual victory.

** The backstory has the centuries-long cold war between the Centauri Republic and the Orieni Empire, at the time the major powers among the Younger Races after the Minbari-and with the latter already isolationists, the only real obstacle to complete control of local space. The Centauri were fine with the state of being, as while their technology was slightly inferior in most areas it was improving faster than the Orieni's and they also had more territory and the greater economy (both of which fed into the faster technological improvement), so they expected to eventually become strong enough to be able to quickly overrun the Orieni... Then, right as the Centauri were about to develop ArtificialGravity (the biggest advantage the Orieni had over them), they realized the Orieni were equipping Drazi raiders with advanced weapons by catching them in the act, causing a conflict so devastating entire worlds were razed as ''collateral damage'' before the Orieni power was shattered, with the victorious Centauri starting their path to decline due the devastating losses suffered and the conflict paving the way to a civil war.

->''"Thus began the unprecedented stalemate. The Jedi reconnecting with their roots, TheRepublic nursing its wounds, the Sith consolidating their power in a galaxy divided between [[GoodRepublicEvilEmpire darkness and light]]."''

** By the time ''The Next Generation'' rolled around, the Federation and Klingons were officially allies (how close varied) and both factions were in a cold war with the Romulans. The Roumlans and Kilngons also ''hated'' each other. An actual war was also mentioned to have recently been fought (offscreen) between the Federation and the Cardassians, with the current status some mixture of peace and a cold war. This state of affairs would continue until the next show, see below.

* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' stories "The Armageddon Factor", "Timelash".
** Also "Frontier in Space," in which a third party[[note]] The Daleks, anyone surprised?[[/note]] is provoking a (second) war between the humans and their enemies, the Draconians.

[[folder: Anime and Manga]]

[[folder: Comics]]

[[folder:FanWorks]]

[[folder:{{Literature}}]]

[[folder:LiveActionTV]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

* ''Literature/SpaceAcademyDropouts'': The Galactic Community is an alliance of various democratic species and their somewhat shady Security Divisions set against the the Notha Empire that is a totalitarian autocracy. Both sides possess SKAMMS, sun-destroying weapons, that prevent them from engaging in a total war.

** ''VideoGame/KaiserreichLegacyOfTheWeltkrieg'' starts out with its own alternate history version of World War II (in a world where UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany won [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI the Weltkrieg]], the rematch pits them against a syndicalist Britain and France to the west and a revanchist Russia to the east), and two mods exist that take this scenario into the postwar era. In ''VideoGame/KalterkriegShadowOfTheWeltkrieg'', the Third International was defeated and the SecondAmericanCivilWar ended in a ceasefire, leading to a multipolar Cold War between Germany, the Entente Cordiale (the restored UK, Canada, and South France), Russia, and Japan while the various nations in the former United States all line up behind different power blocs. In ''Krasnacht'', meanwhile, Germany was defeated in the west by the Third International and in the east by an ultra-nationalist Russian regime, the two sides now locked in a Cold War with the politics reversed from our own history, the West (including an America where the syndicalists won the Civil War) being leftist and the East being right-wing.

** ''VideoGame/KaiserreichLegacyOfTheWeltkrieg'' starts out with its own alternate history version of World War II (in a world where UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany won [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI the Weltkrieg]], the rematch pits them against a syndicalist Britain and France to the west and a revanchist Russia to the east), and two mods exist that take this scenario into the postwar era. In ''Kalterkrieg: Shadow of the Second Weltkrieg'', the Third International was defeated and the SecondAmericanCivilWar ended in a ceasefire, leading to a multipolar Cold War between Germany, the Entente Cordiale (the restored UK, Canada, and South France), Russia, and Japan while the various nations in the former United States all line up behind different power blocs. In ''Krasnacht'', meanwhile, Germany was defeated in the west by the Third International and in the east by an ultra-nationalist Russian regime, the two sides now locked in a Cold War with the politics reversed from our own history, the West (including an America where the syndicalists won the Civil War) being leftist and the East being right-wing.

* A significant portion of the ''Anime/LegendOfGalacticHeroes'' falls into this, as by beginning of the series the centuries long war between TheEmpire and [[TheFederation the Alliance]] generally devolved into the Cold-War-with-occasional-skirmish mode and it took the rise of Reinhard and Wen-Li -- the eponymous Heroes -- to the top of their respective societies, for conflict to intensify again.

->''"You know, there's something I just don't understand. You're always telling me that space is big, that it's an endless frontier, filled with infinite wonders. If that's the case, you would think there'd be more than enough room to allow people to ''leave each other alone''."''
-->-- '''Joseph Sisko''', ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' ("A Time to Stand")

* ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'': The setting for the game, is a cold war that was established, when, after invading TheRepublic for decades, [[TheEmpire the Sith Empire]] sacks their capital, and forces them to sign a peace treaty. The Empire's motivation for signing the treaty, which gives the empire a bunch of strategically insignificant worlds, is a great mystery, and the Emperor disappeared soon after it was signed. This cold war brings the idea of an arms race to it's logical conclusion: planet destroying weapons, besides the usual proxy conflicts and special forces operations. Both sides are positively chopping at the bit for the war to go hot again, and the facade of peace breaks down over [[ThreeActStructure the three acts]] of each of the game's eight class story-lines.

* In ''Series/BattlestarGalactica1978'' this is the sitiuation on Terra and its colonies. In "Experiment in Terra" the Eastern Empire attempts to go hot, but all their ICBMs are shot down by the Galactica.

* ''Literature/SpaceAcademyDropouts'': The Galactic Community is an alliance of various democratic species and their somewhat shady Security Divisions set against the the Notha Empire that is a totalitarian autocracy. Both sides possess SKAMMS, sun destroying weapons, that prevent them from engaging in a total war.

* ''Literature/SpaceAcademyDropouts'': The Galactic Community is an alliance of various democratic species and their somewhat shady Security Divisions set against the the Notha Empire that is a totalitarian autocracy. Both sides possess SKAMMS, SunKiller weapons, that prevent them from engaging in a total war.