History Main / StagedPopulistUprising

* Maul's conquest of Mandalore in ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars''. The criminal syndicates he "recruited" attacked, making Duchess Satime's pacifist government look weak, and then his allies in the [[ProudWarriorRace fundamentalist Mandalorian]] terrorist group Death Watch "apprehended" the criminal scum and ingratiated themselves with the public, enabling them to pull off a coup without resistance.

* Jerry Pournelle's Literature/CoDominium novel ''Go Tell the Spartans''. Senator Bronson of Earth wants to overthrow the leadership of the planet Sparta and take over. To accomplish this, he sends in supplies and advisers to organize Sparta's convict underclass into a rebel army.
** It backfires spectacularly: Not only does the "Helot" rebellion fail, but it also prompts Sparta to become TheEmpire.

* Earth's government suffers one of these in ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', with as-yet-unidentified conspirators turning the entire police force of the planet's capital into brainwashed "revolutionaries". It appears more likely that the conspirators are hoping to spark a crippling civil war rather than actually take over themselves.

* The "Vengeance" organization in the Franchise/StarWars HandOfThrawn duology is ostensibly a massive grassroots organization, with a huge membership scattered across multiple important worlds. In fact, it's all masterminded by about half a dozen [[StateSec Imperial Intelligence]] agents, which the heroes eventually catch on to.

* In ''CodeGeass'', when the Black Knights discover that Zero is Lelouch vi Brittannia, exiled prince of TheEmpire that they are fighting, they come to the conclusion that he was just using them. [[spoiler:They're actually wrong, but since he has a death wish at that point, he does not refute them]].

** It turns out that The Party is actually behind the counter-revolutionary group "the Brotherhood", having staged the uprising itself in order to weed out dissidents.

* Referred to as "Rat-revolt" in ''LookToTheWest'', short for ''Rattenfaenger Revolt'', Rattenfaenger being the German name for the Pied Piper (i.e. the rebels are dancing to someone else's tune). Appropriately this is because one such revolt takes place in Germany, secretly influenced by the conservative Saxon government which can then take advantage of the chaos to expand their own power.

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* The Sangheili [[CivilWar Blooding Years]] was initiated by [[GovernmentAgencyofFiction ONI]] selling equipment to a [[WarriorMonk Sangheili cult leader]] in order to destabilize Sanghelios. The result, [[ApocalypseHow/Class1 the displacement and/or death of 4 billion lives]] and the formation of [[TheRemnant a new Covenant]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' the Equalists seek to end all bending, their leader, Amon, has the power to remove someone's bending abilities permanently and claims that his family was murdered by firebenders who also scarred his face. [[spoiler: Turns out, he's actually a bloodbender and the son of an infamous gangster, and his "scars" are just makeup. However, WordOfGod states that his anti-bending rhetoric is fully sincere, making him more of a BoomerangBigot]].

* A Republic storyline in ''Videogame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' centers on an uprising on a prison planet. The rebels are the descendants of convicts and are quite angry that they are treated like prisoners even though they themselves have committed no crimes. However, you discover that the insurgents are manipulated by Imperial agents who want to use the uprising to destabilize the planet.

* In ''Discworld/NightWatch'', the rebellion against Lord Winder is actually being subtly masterminded by [[spoiler:Madam Meserole]], and revolutionaries like Reg Shoe don't really have anything to do with it. Most of the 'rebel' activity is actually neutral civilians building barricades to hide behind until the fighting stops, the leadership is just to oblivious to figure this out.

* In ''LightNovel/TateNoYuushaNoNariagari'' a supposed peasant uprising in Melromarc was quickly found to be reliant on {{brainwashed}} people being manipulated behind the scenes by [[spoiler:Malty, the Church of Three Heroes, and Itsuki's former companions]] who were also working in cahoots with various nobles.

* The Knights of Jove conspirators in ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' claim they are trying to reinstate the rightful Storm King for the sake of Europa. Really they're just a bunch of scheming nobles who resent Baron Wulfenbach.

* In ''CodeGeass'', when the Black Knights discover that Zero is Lelouch vi Brittannia, exiled prince of TheEmpire that they are fighting, they come to the conclusion that he was just using them. [[spoiler:They're actually wrong, but since he has a death wish at that point, he does not refute them.]]

* A Republic storyline in ''StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' centers on an uprising on a prison planet. The rebels are the descendants of convicts and are quite angry that they are treated like prisoners even though they themselves have committed no crimes. However, you discover that the insurgents are manipulated by Imperial agents who want to use the uprising to destabilize the planet.

Many of the more cynical writers see all revolutions this way; it doesn't really help that most countries that have had their governments overthrown [[FullCircleRevolution ended up with more tyrannical regimes than their predecessors]], and that many rebel groups throughout history have been dependent on outside help for supplies, leadership, and funding. [[noreallife]]

* In the second season of ''GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'', the BigBad's plan is an artificially created version of the eponymous spontaneous event from the first season, created by brainwashing a few people. [[spoiler:His aim is to make refugees rebel, making it appear that they had a nuke and thus being able to blow them all up with one.]] The first season had a subversion; [[spoiler:while there was never a "Laughing Man" (Aoi, the "original" says he just came across an email [[UnknownCharacter some guy]] sent), he came about because of MemeticMutation and GossipEvolution. Not some huge conspiracy (although a few did crop up to take advantage of it)]].

* Roleplayed fairly often in ''ImperiumNova''

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' the Equalists seek to end all bending, their leader, Amon, has the power to remove someone's bending abilities permanently and claims that his family was murdered by firebenders who also scarred his face. [[spoiler: Turns out, he's actually a bloodbender and the son of an infamous gangster, and his "scars" are just makeup. Though according to his brother, he genuinely thought he was improving the world by destroying bending, so the degree to which this trope applies is somewhat unclear.]]

* In ''Discworld/NightWatch'', the rebellion against Lord Winder is actually being subtly masterminded by [[spoiler:Madam Meserole]], and revolutionaries like Reg Shoe don't really have anything to do with it

* About 1/5 of the way through ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'' you learn that the insurgents resisting The Damned 33rd are all being led by a CIA Ops Squad who apparently have the same mission as your squad: locate survivors within the city. Their aim in starting the rebellion is apparently to retake Dubai's water supply, which the 33rd are holding hostage to enforce marshal law upon the refugees. [[spoiler: Their real plan, which you find out much too late, is to ''destroy'' said water supply, dooming the entire city do die of starvation in order to conceal the 33rd's atrocities from the rest of the world.]]