History Main / StrawCivilian

* ''DukeNukemForever'' cheerfully plays this straight: the [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent US President]] is an ObstructiveBureaucrat who outright states he should have ordered [[CIAEvilFBIGood CIA to assassinate Duke]], while the BigGood of the game is [[TheBrigadier General Graves]], despite being mostly a DeskJockey.

* In ''[[Starship Troopers]]'', pretty much anyone not willing to pick up a rifle and stand a post is treated like this, regardless of their actual reasons for not serving. In addition, civilians are portrayed as [[TheyJustDontGetIt being incapable of really understanding]] the need for a military at all.

In stories which involve the military, relations between military officers and the politicians who they answer to can often be a good source of dramatic tension. In some stories, it's the trigger-happy military which is the problem, but if the protagonists are military officers, it's a fair bet that the civilian side of government will either be ignored or will be presented as an obstacle.

* Two words: EscortMission

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** Note that the above was an instance of two friends joking around with each other. The civilian was ribbing on the fighter pilot.

* ''{{BattleTech}}'' fiction leans heavily towards this. The less military experience the ruler of a Successor State has, the less trustworthy they are. (The one exception to this rule may be the late Melissa Steiner-Davion, and even she had to pick up a gun and get her hands personally dirty at a young age when kidnappers came calling during one interstellar voyage.) If a planet gets invaded, if the fact that a local government supposedly exists isn't ignored outright, it's there to complicate the defending forces' job or just flat-out betray them.

* [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] in {{Evolution}}, where it's the usual Straw Civilians that save the day from the AlienInvasion instead of the arrogant, pigheaded GeneralRipper.

** It helps that the major civillian character outside of Minmay happens to be a gigantic douche. Also, the higher-ups in the UN Spacy (Adm. Hayase, for one) are shown to be a bunch of twits who are more interested in keeping up appearances for political reasons themselves. Really, in this case it's almost a case of Straw Anyone Who Is Not A Macross Crew member.

** On the other hand the new BSG introduced the Adama/Roslin dynamic specifically to avert this trope, given the tendency of the Council of 12 to always suggest some inane plan, e.g. Let's make peace with the Cylons! While the new series focusses more on the military, the civilian side hasn't been ignored.

* [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] in {{Film/Evolution}}, where it's the usual Straw Civilians that save the day from the AlienInvasion instead of the arrogant, pigheaded GeneralRipper.

* The show ''ParksAndRecreation'' is actually told from the perspective of bureaucrats. Whenever the main characters interact with the public, the members of the public are portrayed as a collection of weirdos and morons. For example, one town hall meeting featured a woman complaining to the Parks Department because she found a sandwich in one of their parks and was upset that it didn't contain mayonnaise.

* ''{{Star Trek}}'' had a couple of these, most notably Nilz Barris from ''The Trouble With Tribbles''.

Turns up in a lot of MilitaryScienceFiction, but is also found elsewhere. The (mostly) opposite of ArmiesAreEvil.

* ''[[Star Trek]]'' had a couple of these, most notably Nilz Barris from ''The Trouble With Tribbles''.

** I'd say an aversion, as he worked as a protagonist in his own right, held his own arcs, the bioweapons thing is presented as the moral, correct choice, and he assisted in the Mars Rebellion with the protagonists. At the least, he's not presented as a straw character.

Turns up in a lot of MilitaryScienceFiction, but is also found elsewhere.

* TomClancy's novels have this. People who complain about loud jet planes flying from military bases near their homes are just whining about the "sound of freedom". Apparently, noise that can wake you up at night, cause hearing damage, and cause stress related diseases, would be totally harmless if you just realize it is there to protect you from the evildoers.