History Main / TheRemnant

* The main antagonists of ''Series/TheMandalorian'' are a faction of former [[Franchise/StarWars Galactic Empire]] military units who refuse to acknowledge the Empire's collapse, and are rampaging across the Outer Rim (where the New Republic's [[AuthorityInNameOnly ability to enact its authority is fairly limited]]) as they try to gather the resources needed to retake control of the galaxy.

* ''Literature/WarriorCats'' After their defeat, the remainder of [=BloodClan=] is one of these for a while, going through a succession of wannabe-tyrants, but none of them can really replace Scourge, and the group eventually scatters.

* ''Literature/DownToASunlessSea'': A civilian version is featured. When word of the nuclear war is announced to the passengers on the plane the main action takes place on, two diehard Soviet diplomats and their KGB bodyguards take the news of their country’s fate poorly and try to hijack it. For added iron, the actual military forces who survive (most notably some SAS soldiers also onboard the plane, two Russian aviators who picked up the population of the home village of one in cargo plane and then tried to fly somewhere safe, and the soldiers at the soldiers at the Antarctic [=McMurdo=] station who weren’t DrivenToSuicide by despair) all avert this by being helpful and sympathetic characters who never entertain any delusions of grandeur or ideas of continuing their old government.

* ''Literature/DownToASunlessSea'': A civilian version is featured When word of the nuclear war is announced to the passengers on the plane the main action takes place on, two diehard Soviet diplomats and their KBG bodyguards take the news of their country’s fate poorly and try to hijack it. For added irony The actual military forces who survive (most notably some SAS soldiers also onboard the plane, two Russian aviators who picked up the population of the home village of one in cargo plane and then tried to fly somewhere safe, and the soldiers at the soldiers at the Antarctic [=McMurdo=] station who weren’t DrivenToSuicide by despair) all avert this by being helpful and sympathetic characters who never entertain any delusions of grandeur or ideas of continuing their old government.

* ''Literature/DownToASunlessSea'': A civilian version is featured When word of the nuclear war is announced to the passengers on the plane the main action takes place on, two diehard Soviet diplomats and their KBG bodyguards take the news of their country’s fate poorly and try to hijack it. For added irony The actual military forces who survive (most notably some SAS soldiers also onboard the plane, two Russian aviators who picked up the population of the home village of one in cargo plane and then tried to fly somewhere safe, and the soldiers at the soldiers at the Antarctic McMurdo station who weren’t DrivenToSuicide by despair) all avert this by being helpful and sympathetic characters who never entertain any delusions of grandeur or ideas of continuing their old government.

%%* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': The Blade Ship's crew may qualify.

* In the novel ''Warday'' by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka, published in 1984 and depicting a future which seemed plausible at the time, the United States and Soviet Union destroy each other in a nuclear war. Britain, which emerged unscathed, proceeds to re-establish itself as a major world power and in effect re-create UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire. Five years afterwards, a Captain of the British Royal Navy, patrolling the Pacific , tells the protagonists: "There are still submarines at sea, carrying nuclear missiles and loyal to non-existent governments. They are extremely dangerous and if they don't surrender we have to destroy them".

* Viral in ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' fits this role early on after the TimeSkip, although subverted in that while being classified as a terrorist and gets told several times that his fight is pointless, he still insists that he does it for a noble goal. [[spoiler:It is later revealed that he did, in fact, fight for a good cause, as he was aiming to keep the population underground to prevent the activation of the Anti-Spirals' annihilation program. He does grow out of this role when he [[HeelFaceTurn joins up with the heroes]], and eventually ends up as the supreme commander of the galactic federation fleet]].
** He doesn't really know about [[spoiler: the Anti-spirals though. What he's doing is fighting so that the people who want to stay underground can do that, at least in this particular instance. Lordgenome wanted them underground, they want to be underground, and Viral is pretty much all that's left to fight for that goal. It's hard to not feel bad for Viral finally getting arrested because Enkidu has seen SO MANY HOPELESS BATTLES that it finally just breaks down. Viral even apologizes to it.]]

* The First Order in ''Franchise/StarWars: Film/TheForceAwakens'' is a successor of the original Galactic Empire; note that the ''Legends'' continuity already had done something similar, as shown in the Literature folder below. Thanks to some drastic actions on their part, the First Order manages to step out of this shadow by [[Film/TheLastJedi the sequel]]. It's strongly implied that they were deliberately playing this up so the New Republic wouldn't realize they were a genuine threat until they'd already finished their build up and attacked their now-demilitarized conquerors.

* During the ''Franchise/DeadSpace'' series, [=EarthGov=] serves as the government of Humanity. However, they are shown to be willing to torture people who have come into contact with [[ArtifactOfDoom the Markers]] in order to create even more of them because of the promise of creating a new energy source, including series protagonist Isaac Clarke who ended up tortured by them for three years following the events of the first game. By the beginning of Dead Space 3, the once powerful [=EarthGov=] has been totally wiped out by the Unitologists uprising, with the platoon that you work with being the last remnants of their military.

* ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'': The Supreme Intelligence of the Kree destroyed his own Empire with a Nega-Bomb, and the Avengers executed him for that. Still, a small group of Krees, called the "Lunar Legion" (because they set their base on the blue area of the moon) blame the Avengers for the destruction of their Empire and their beloved Supreme Intelligence, and try to kill them. Of course, the SI turns out to be less dead than they thought.

* ''Series/AroundTheWorldInEightyDays2021'': While taking a stagecoach to catch up with a Transcontinental Railroad train, Phileas Fogg et al. become entangled with a black US Marshal pursuing a gang of Klansmen composed of ex-Confederate Army soldiers, led by a former colonel named Abernathy, who fled west after being driven out of Tennessee where they were conducting a terrorist campaign against freedmen.

** The aforementioned [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teruo_Nakamura Teruo Nakamura]] was the last Japanese holdout to be discovered. He was a member of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takasago_Volunteers Takasago Volunteers Unit]] composed of Taiwanese aborigines. A search team led by a JSDF Major-General lured him out of hiding by playing the Japanese National Anthem on speakers. During his debrief, while being informed that the Pacific War is over, Teruo calmly replied, "Japan did not lose the war, I wish to return to Japan". Instead, he was flown back to Taiwan under a Chinese name 'Lee Kuang-Hui', a fact he only discovered upon returning. Due to the perception of Indonesians that Japan aided in the independence of Indonesia, and many ex-Imperial soldiers also fought on behalf of the revolution, a bronze statue was made in Nakamura's honor in 2012.

** The aforementioned [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teruo_Nakamura Teruo Nakamura]] was the last Japanese holdout to be discovered. He was a member of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takasago_Volunteers Takasago Volunteers Unit]] composed of Taiwanese aborigines. A search team led by a JSDF Major-General lured him out of hiding by playing the Japanese National Anthem. During his debrief, while being informed that the Pacific War is over, Teruo calmly replied, "Japan did not lose the war, I wish to return to Japan". Instead, he was flown back to Taiwan under a Chinese name 'Lee Kuang-Hui', a fact he only discovered upon returning. Due to the perception of Indonesians that Japan aided in the independence of Indonesia, and many ex-Imperial soldiers also fought on behalf of the revolution, a bronze statue was made in Nakamura's honor in 2012.

* ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic IV'': most of the nations on the new world of Axeoth are survivors who escaped from the Armageddon on the world of Enroth. One such nation is the kingdom of Palaedra made up of former Erathians and ruled by the just Lord Lysander, who refuses to accept the crown because he's not of Gryphonheart blood. [[spoiler:He learns at the end of the campaign that he is, in fact, a Gryphonheart and says ruefully that he won't have an excuse not to accept the crown anymore.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{FreedomPlanet2}}'', it’s revealed that [[spoiler:when Brevon, the BigBad of the first game, was defeated, some of his forces were left stranded on Avalice. These forces are lead by General Serpentine, Brevon's right-hand man, who still swears loyalty to his master]].

* The town of Calais in northern France was a Remnant of English rule over France; even after Joan of Arc and her friends booted the English out of the rest of France, England held on to Calais. This gave Calais a reputation as an odd Remnant, exacerbated during the UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses, when its position in France made it hard to conquer and it was essentially the Remnant for whichever faction was out of power at the time. Calais would continue being an English possession until the reign of Queen Mary I. Similarly, the Channel Islands were something of a Remnant insofar as they were culturally closer to France than England and came into English possession through William the Conqueror; to this day, the British monarch rules over the Channel Islands as the Duke of Normandy[[note]]not "duchess", even if the monarch is female like UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen[[/note]], as William the Conqueror did thousands of years before.

* The last prime minister of Japan in ''Anime/CodeGeass'' is treated somewhat like this trope... [[spoiler:But he never got to go through with it because Suzaku killed him. It's heavily implied that Britannia would have eradicated Japan utterly if he had.]]

** Really Shocker never really dies out and frequently attempts comebacks. They tried in the Super Hero Taisen films too and Kamen Rider 1's crossover with Ghost implies Hongo has been stamping out the remains for decades (and they try a comeback there too) Rider enemy factions rarely die out and keeping them from making a comeback is one of every Rider's life long mission's.

* Fate Averruncus of ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi''. Manga only though, [[OverTookTheManga the anime renders this impossible for plot altering reasons]]. Fate was second in command of a group called Cosmo Entelecheia, a group that was trying to bring about the end of the world A.K.A. "The Ritual To Return The World To Nothing". The group was lead by someone who was only known as "The Life Maker" and "The Mage of the Beginning". They fueled a war in order to accomplish this. It was the war and the defeat of The Mage Of The Beginning that made Nagi Springfield (protagonist's father) a legend. After that he was known as "The Invincible Thousand Master" or just The Thousand Master for short. Fate hasn't given up.
** Or he might be the [[ArtificialHuman newest version]] of the second in command of Cosmo Entelecheia.
* Many antagonists of ''Anime/PumpkinScissors'' are this type.

* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout Japanese holdouts]] were soldiers who fought for Imperal Japan in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and kept fighting after the war ended -- sometimes ''decades'' later. They were usually stationed on small islands in the Philippines or elsewhere in the Pacific and either never learned or never believed that Japan had actually surrendered. The last known holdout was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teruo_Nakamura Teruo Nakamura]], who didn't surrender until 1974, a full 29 years after the war's end -- but rumours of even more persisted until the end of the century. These single soldiers survived through guerrilla tactics, stealing food and supplies from the locals and attacking local law enforcement; however, due to the unusual circumstances of their actions, most were absolved of all charges after being recovered.

* ''Literature/StationEleven'': Done unusually; with many founders of the Traveling Symphony were survivors of an Air Force military orchestra who spent years lingering at the old military base together before eventually joining up with some actors and hitting the road.