History Main / FascistButInefficient

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': Ankh-Morpork under Homicidal Lord Winder in ''Literature/{{Night Watch|Discworld}}'' is portrayed as one of these, due to Winder's paranoia, and the excessive power he has therefore given his StateSec, the Cable Street Particulars, whose captain is a firm believer in judging a man's character by the shape of his face. As a result, the entire city is an illustration of the fact that a powerful man who believes he has enemies everywhere will eventually be correct.

This is TruthInTelevision; it's usually hard to oppress people, try to TakeOverTheWorld and run a functioning government at the same time. And indeed, there have been a number of real life cases of such empires falling under this trope. But such things are beyond the scope of this website. Because of the inherent FlameBait of calling any government entity a fascist state, the only RealLife example we will allow on this page is the preceding one about Nazi Germany. Other than that, Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease.

* Zig-zagged in ''Literature/{{Victoria}}'' with the protagonists faction being highly efficient fascists, but the Republic of Azania, a LadyLand inhabiting a CrapsackWorld that is one of the setting's most scientifically and technologically advanced nations, with a working industrial economy in a largely post-apocalyptic future America, and able to equip their troops accordingly. On the other hand, its critical personnel shortage forces them to have badly trained pilots fly their advanced fighters, which significantly dents their advantage in the air.

* The Templars of ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' tend to function as such. Due to their belief in keeping the populace weak as part of their interpretation of Order, whenever they tend to control territories they tend to run it to the ground as seen in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood''. The Renaissance is considered a "Dark Age" of sorts for Templars as members were out solely for personal gain rather than forwarding their goals, but the modern-day or Altair-era Templars don't seem much better. Sure, they're not openly stabbing each other in the back in the name of personal power, but despite apparently having been in a position of control over just about ''everything'' except the minds of the populace itself [[spoiler:hence the need for the Apple,]] the Assassins still exist and still manage to repeatedly yank the rug out from under the Templars.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' has the Skaven, a seemingly insignificant race of ChaoticEvil ratmen -- insignificant only in their inability to cooperate when they're the most powerful and overwhelming force on the planet. The core of all Skaven is fear -- they fear their enemies, they fear each other, they even worship their unloving and monstrous god by constantly fearing that he will materialize and start eating titanic handfuls of screaming rats because he was bored. Which he has done on occasion. As a result, their society is one unending Fascist state with every citizen enslaving at least one other Skaven and other Skaven enslaving them, all the way to the top, where the twelve big rats squabble and argue on a giant magnet about Skaven policies and how they can write the rules to serve their ends. Despite the sheer difference in both population and technology between the Skaven and every other race on the planet, Chaos included, the constant infighting, backstabbing, and enslaving means that the Skaven are incapable of dominating a single surface outpost without some (easily killed) chieftain rat to herd them like cattle, hence the reason why they are so obscure that the Empire has deemed them a heretical myth. This is also why even most of those in the Empire who do know about the Skaven do nothing to correct the inconception: If the world knew about the Skaven and tried doing something about them, they might form an EnemyMine and actually be a serious threat. As things stand, if you leave them to their own devices, nine out of ten Skaven plots will be thwarted by other Skaven before they get off the ground.

This is TruthInTelevision; it's usually hard to oppress people, try to TakeOverTheWorld and run a functioning government at the same time. But such things are beyond the scope of this website. Because of the inherent FlameBait of calling any government entity a fascist state, the only RealLife example we will allow on this page is the preceding one about Nazi Germany. Other than that, Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease.

** Even the Fire Nation is not immune to this trope, and they were only efficient in relative terms. InterserviceRivalry is fairly common between army and navy, and commanding officers are corrupt and ambitious {{Glory Hound}}s who favor strong arm methods rather than precise tactics that they tend to kill their own soldiers quite frequently either by themselves or by just crushing the enemy with sheer force and numbers. It becomes rather telling that the military has been having trouble maintaining control over various Earth Kingdom provinces since Earth Kingdom citizens' greatest strength is their determination. Even within the mainland, resources are mostly dedicated to building its military usually at the expense of backwater villages that are unable to have access to food and water. And there are even towns that are rife with crime that {{Dirty Cop}}s are easily bribed and can't be bothered to deal with maintaining order.

* ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' has this PlayedForLaughs with the Irkens ''and'' the humans. Both societies are cruel, totalitarian, and run by incompetent egotists who react to any objections with brainwashing or death, despite having absolutely no idea what they're doing themselves.

* The Gem Homeworld from ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' operates on a HiveCasteSystem where one's role and position depends on one's gem-type, with the Diamonds acting as the highest of authorities. The Diamonds each have complete unchecked power over their Empire and are willing to enact harsh punishments at the slightest provocation, including instant death. Because of this, certain forms of efficiency are sacrificed in order for some gems to escape the Diamonds' wrath. Holly Blue Agate, for instance, does ''not'' inform Blue Diamond of the Crystal Gems' escape from the Human Zoo; as they escaped right under her nose, she'd almost certainly be subject to YouHaveFailedMe. They also have a taboo against fusion, fusions between the same gem-types only allowed during combat situations and inter-gem fusions like Garnet and Rhodonite (which are, as a rule, ''far'' [[YinYangBomb more powerful]]) considered criminal punishable by shattering, even though Garnet only first manifested by accident when Ruby saved Sapphire, the very thing that Ruby was assigned to do.\\

* "VideoGame/DeusEx": The Illuminati present a facade of efficiency, but show extreme difficulty both in keeping citizens in basic sanitary conditions, and unable to handle a technologically-inferior terrorist group. Graft is common, biomilitary funding has laughably poor quarantining procedure, and it's noteworthy when a field agent refuses to kill so he can interrogate survivors. This problem proves systemic when, faced with rogue agents, the Illuminati field obsolete technology and outclassed operatives. When pressed to finally dispatch a top-of-the-line soldier finally to engage, he proves so PowerfulButIncompetent that he can only attempt to counter direct confrontations, but fails miserably at even slowing down a stealthy opponent.

* ''Literature/EightySixEightySix'': Even before the Giadian Empire invaded, the Republic of San Magnolia was a corrupt, racist oligarchy pretending to be a liberal democracy, and the war caused them to double down on their worst and most self-destructive traits. After their military proved inadequate for the task of defeating the Legion, they didn't start taking it seriously and band together as a nation to deal with an existential threat, but turned the war into an excuse for genocide-by-proxy while letting their privileged elite hide from reality within a bubble of propaganda.

* ''Franchise/KerberosSaga:'' The fascist Japanese government could write a book on being inefficient. With their heavily armoured Panzer Cops, you'd think they have it all figured out. But surprise, surprise, leftist revolts are popping up like mushrooms after a rainstorm, all thanks to their genius economic policies. So what's a government to do? Call in the Panzer Cops, of course! But their reputation for brutality doesn't exactly win hearts and minds. Plus, they can't even keep their own government agencies from bickering like schoolyard rivals. So yeah, the whole operation was a hot mess, and it's no wonder the Panzers got the boot. Nice try, guys.

* Creator/TerryGilliam's ''Film/{{Brazil}}'' takes place in a fascist dystopia where Byzantine bureaucracy and malfunctioning SchizoTech have made the government both extremely repressive and incredibly incompetent. The plot is triggered when someone arrests Buttle (shoemaker) thinking he's Tuttle (a renegade plumber) because of a typo. And Tuttle is a renegade plumber because the government cannot fulfill requests for plumbing repairs, yet outlaws anyone else from doing it.

* The original ''Film/{{Stargate}}''. Ra doesn't use Jaffa soldiers, preferring to rely on humans (in a meta sense, it's justified, as the Jaffa [[Series/StargateSG1 hadn't been thought of yet]], but in-universe, it was ludicrously stupid) and he doesn't seem to have brought more than two death gliders, that pretty much are only used for intimidation tactic. No wonder you were taken down by a ragtag group of Earth military and primitive natives.

** [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] with the original Galactic Empire within the films. The leadership chain as seen in ''Film/RogueOne'' can be likened to a squabbling pissing contest, the commanders are incompetent fodder for Darth Vader in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', and in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' Vader has to personally whip the crew back on schedule, but are efficient enough to nearly complete two planet-destroying superweapons in three years' time and get the upper hand in combat several times.

* Played with in Creator/TomKratman's ''Literature/{{Caliphate}}'' where most superpowers are [[CrapsackWorld fascist regimes]] such as America and China, but at least they are more technologically advanced and [[ALighterShadeOfBlack only liberal by comparison]] to the titular caliphate, which is considered extremely backwards and decayed. For one thing, their economy is very fragile, reliant completely on non-Muslims paying the taxes and ''only'' them, and they are running out of slaves fast with their increasing persecution. They are culturally stagnant, due to a fierce ChurchPolice declaring even ''drawings'' illegal -- a Chinese agent comments the only thing they produce of note is [[TheFundamentalist fanaticism]]. It speaks something when they are reliant on renegade scientists to [[spoiler:create a biochemical weapon to destroy all their enemies at once because their military performance is too poor]].

* ''VideoGame/StarCraft'':
** Both Terran Governments we get to see are portrayed as fascist, dictatorial, and extremely ineffective; at the beginning of the game, the Confederation is clearly hated by almost everybody due to their policy of nuking rebellious planets, and it's quite clear the regime was already dying before Arcturus raised a rebel army of his own that destroyed it. Afterwards, his Terran Dominion seems ''slightly'' more effective, but just as oppressive, and ends up rather easily destroyed by the [[TheWarOfEarthlyAggression UED]]. While he manages to rebuild it between the end of ''Brood War'' and ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'', it's implied the only reason he lasted so long was that Kerrigan [[CruelMercy didn't consider him worth killing]]. The very moment she decides to go on the warpath against him again, [[CurbStompBattle his Dominion is crushed]], and the drastic measures he attempts to save it only end up making things worse.
*** Mengsk also has one of the traits of RealLife fascist militaries down, his lust for enormous ego-stroking superweapons. At the height of the zerg invasion on the Dominion, he spends an enormous amount of resources to produce the Odin, a mammoth ''walking tank'' packed with every armament imaginable, up to and including ''nukes''. [[LaResistance Raynor's]] men steal it, and after having some fun with it, declare it useless as a practical weapon and discard it, [[spoiler:only for Mengsk to decide to bring it out again when the Zerg and Raiders launch a joint invasion of Korhal]].
** The [[NotSoOmniscientCouncilOfBickering Protoss Conclave]] is shown to be utterly incompetent in defending Aiur against the [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Zerg]] [[AlienInvasion invasion]] due to [[HonorBeforeReason their insistence of relying on traditional protoss tactics]] (which ''aren't'' at all effective against a ZergRush) and constant refusal to accept help from [[DarkIsNotEvil the Dark Templar]] for ideological reasons, [[TooDumbToLive even though the Dark Templars possess exactly what is needed to defeat the Zerg]]. They also refuse Terran help, again for "[[FantasticRacism ideological]]" reasons. Unsurprisingly, they are the first to get exterminated by the time of ''Brood War''.
** Defied by [[HiveQueen Kerrigan]], of all people, in ''[[VideoGame/StarCraftIIHeartOfTheSwarm Heart of the Swarm]]'', where she decides, despite [[TheSpock Abathur]]'s recommendations, to grant her Broodmothers more free will and individuality, as she feels the Swarm would be more effective if they are capable of thinking by themselves and taking initiative rather than being just mindless slaves.
* ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'': Even at the finest eras of the Sith Empire, the infrastructure is crumbling or nonexistent, and everyone from two-bit officials to the Sith theocracy is too busy [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder backstabbing each other]] or fearing their underling's constant attempts at invoking KlingonPromotion to accomplish ''anything''. Add an untenable [[WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture reliance on slave labor]] and a boatload of FantasticRacism against ''every'' non-human (or non-Sith) species, in a galaxy with ''[[LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces over twenty million sentient species]]''. In the later storylines [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Darth Marr]] takes acts to try and fix this, enacting pro-alien policies as well as trying to curb some of the Empire's worse habits (particularly the rampant backstabbing/politicking).

* WordOfGod notes that this was [[InvokedTrope invoked]] in ''[[VideoGame/TransformersWarForCybertron War For Cybertron]]'', where the Decepticon capital of Kaon is a dark, ramshackle place to mimic how the Decepticons (with their MightMakesRight thinking) just aren't interested in building a functional government.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Adam Taurus is a supporter of Faunus supremacy and seeks to TakeOverTheWorld to achieve it, going so far as to kill Sienna Khan so he can take over the White Fang and lead them into a war against humanity. Sadly, throughout Volume 5, it's proven that while Adam is an excellent warrior, he's a ''horrible'' leader; he's hot-tempered, spiteful, and petty, and makes incredibly stupid moves that blow up in his face. On top of pushing away valuable allies like Salem's faction out of petty spite and bigotry, he proceeds to order the assassination of Blake's parents just to spite and hurt her; the assassination fails and provides just the means for Blake to [[NeutralNoLonger rally the previously neutral citizens of Menagerie against him]]. When cornered at Haven, [[TakingYouWithMe Adam attempts to blow himself]] [[BadBoss and his troops up]] with everyone else instead of surrendering or risk trying to fight his way out, and when his troops are all subdued and arrested, he decides to simply [[VillainExitStageLeft make a break for it]]. Ilia predicts that no one in the White Fang will support or follow Adam after all of this, and come "Argus Limited," she's proven right; [[spoiler:when Adam returns to his headquarters, his remaining men block his access to his throne, mock his failure at Haven, and make it clear they won't follow his orders anymore, leading to Adam flying into a rage and slaughtering them all]].

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* ''Blog/HamstersParadise'': The Purebloods are a civilization of tundra harmsters obsessed with maintaining cultural and genetic purity in front of the other harmster civilizations developing very divergent cultures and interbreeding with the other harmster species. As a result, they ruthlessly police themselves for any deviation from their ancestral culture and cull any member of their kind who shows any mutation or genetic impurity. This ultimately cripples their civilization, as their obsession with purity leaves them vulnerable to inbreeding and lacking in genetic diversity needed to resist disease, while their enforcement of "pure" culture also prevents them from developing any real technological advancement and allows the more advanced factions to devastate them when war breaks out.
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* ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'': While the government of Oceania as it appears in the original text by Orwell is most decidedly ''not'' this, a parodic short story by Alan Coren titled "Owing To Circumstances Beyond Our Control, 1984 Has Been Unavoidably Detained" plays it straight: it took so long to get Winston because telescreens are breaking down and informants are idiots, and when Winston is dragged to Room101 the Ministry of Love is out of budget and lacking implements to torture him with (the famous scene of torturing him with a rat does not happens because winter wiped them out).