Fictional United Nations

"The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal: to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully."

— Commander Jeffrey Sinclair, season one opening narration, Babylon 5

The Fictional United Nations is a formal international diplomatic apparatus that mediates in disputes between nations. Its primary goal is usually to prevent wars, and it sometimes forms out of an Enemy Mine or Fire-Forged Friends situation, as was the case with the real-life United Nations.

The concept is similar to The Alliance but can contain both good and evil members, which provides a story set there with a source of conflict. Also, alliances are often just a treaty or even an informal agreement making nations allies, whereas here there is a formal governing apparatus. However, unlike The Federation, the Fictional United Nations is not treated as a single state: Individual members are still sovereign nations and may take action unilaterally if they feel the need. It also tends to have no military of its own, and operations ordered by its (usually) ruling council are executed by the armies of member states.

This can fall practically anywhere on the scales of Idealism Versus Cynicism and Romanticism Versus Enlightenment. In some portrayals, the Fictional United Nations is hamstrung by applications of Realpolitik and greed, with big, powerful countries essentially free to ignore it without much consequence and run riot over weaker polities. In other cases the author depicts the job of keeping the peace between nations as tricky but not impossible, with the participants more inclined towards Enlightened Self-Interest and willing to work together for the greater good, allowing for Aesops and/or positive moments when peoples of many tribes and creeds come together and do something awesome.

The Fictional United Nations may enforce a set of Fictional Geneva Conventions. Compare The Alliance and The Federation, as well as United Space of America, which has a similar based-on-a-real-organization derivation. Also compare Multinational Team. See also United Nations Is a Superpower, where the Fictional United Nations has a lot more power than usual; the logical conclusion of this is One World Order.

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• Code Geass: The United Federation of Nations composed of the Chinese Federationa and the remains of the E.U. in an effort to fight against the Holy Britannian Empire.
• Hunter × Hunter: The V5 are the worlds global superpowers that basically run the world, and would later become the V6 with the recent addition of the Kakin Empire when they begin their plans to start an expedition to the Dark Continent while also having a succession war.
• Naruto: The equivalent of one would be the Shinobi Union which acts as a successor to the Allied Shinobi Forces.
• The World Government of One Piece is made up of 170 countries in the Constructed World united to create order. On one level, it works similar to the UN, hosting negotiations between autonomous countries. However, there's also a government above all of them, who demand hefty support for their enormous political and military apparatus (and membership is often more coerced than voluntarily). Collectively, the World Government is basically the United Nations as a Hegemonic Empire.
• That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: The Council of the West is basically a medieval version of the UN, albeit with more actual authority and power. It's made up of many western human nations that originally banded together as a cooperative force against monsters but eventually grew into a political force meant to counter the growing power of the Eastern Empire and provide the western nations a bulwark against the Demon Lords while having power over its members' international affairs and meditating over internal conflicts. It doesn't technically have a standing army of its own (though it can call upon the militaries of its member nations in times of crisis), but rather relies on the mutual cooperation of the Adventure Guild, which they are the main funder of in exchange for being able to call upon its members as a police force (in fact, both the Council's and the Free Guild's headquarters are located in Ingracia just to drive this home). This funding in turn comes from the contributions provided by the member nations, which varies depending on how many councilors said nation provides to represent their interests (in other words, the more you're willing to pay, the greater your voice in international matters). This bloc does not include Dwargon, Sarion, or Ruberios, as all have sufficient military and economic strength to act independently of the Council, but they maintain cordial relations if nothing else. Joining the Council is a marked interest of Rimuru, as doing so would open plenty of doors to the international trade with humans he craves and thus it's a major goal of the Rosso family to prevent him from doing so (or at least, only on their terms), as they recognize that Tempest's prosperity would easily lead to it gaining disproportionate power on the human nations that would threaten their own power.

Comic Books

• Star Wars: Legacy: Volume 2 of the series has the Triumvirate, formed in the wake of the war against Darth Krayt between the Galactic Empire, the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances, and the Jedi Order to keep the peace as the galaxy rebuilds. The three powers are represented by their respective heads of state: Empress Marasiah Fel (a descendant of the Skywalker clan via Jaina Solo's marriage to Jagged Fel), Chief of State Gar Stazi (the admiral who led the Federation's resistance against the Sith), and Jedi Master K'Krukh.

Film

• Batman: The Movie has the United World, serving as a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of the United Nations. The villains' main plot in the film involves kidnapping United World diplomats.
• Iron Sky has the United World Confederacy which consists mainly of bickering delegates representing the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia, India, Japan, China, Pakistan, Finland, and North Korea.
• Street Fighter has the Allied Nations, who deploy Colonel Guile and his men to Shadaloo in order to stop Bison. However, when Bison manages to best them, the AN then order Guile to retreat, much to his chagrin.
• The Austin Powers movies have the World Organization, which mainly listened to Dr. Evil's broadcasts and such. They only appeared in the third movie, though; the first movie actually used the UN and the second movie had Dr. Evil dealing with the 1969 US President instead.
• Our Man Flint had Z.O.W.I.E - Zonal Organization World Intelligence Espianage.
• Seemingly the Galactic Republic in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Its governing body is a Senate made of representatives from thousands of otherwise independent worlds, and like the UN seems to have occasional trouble actually mobilizing to fix problems without violating sovereignty.
• Incredibles 2 has an ambassador of the ULN, which stands for "United League of Nations."

Literature

• The later books in the Old Man's War series partly revolve around the formation of an apparatus called the Conclave, intended to end the incessant territorial warfare between the thousands of races in the setting and distribute planets fairly. The Last Colony and Zoe's Tale deal with an attempt by humanity to sabotage it out of distrust.
• The Thomas Dixon Jr book The Fall Of A Nation has a "Parliament of Nations" created when the United States does not intervene in World War I, and that conflict ends in a negotiated stalemate. (The book was written before the US entry into the war.) The delegates are the head of state of each member nation, and it's even more useless than the real-life League of Nations.
• The 21st-century timeline in Star Trek: Federation features an organization in the background called the New United Nations that apparently replaced the original. We never find out much detail because the Optimum destroy the entire organization in the course of their bid for world domination.
  • The name first came up in the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It made a human-rights declaration in 2036, and from the context, it had collapsed by 2079.
• In some of Robert A. Heinlein's stories set in the medium future, Earth has a UNish supernational government. E.g.:
  • Have Space Suit – Will Travel: the Federated Free Nations has control of some space-based military.
  • The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress: The Federated Nations has control of all "attack weapons ... but defense weapons were each nation's own pidgin". The FN runs the penal colony on the Moon.
• The notional multinational governance of the Associated Worlds in the Eldraeverse, the Conclave of Galactic Polities. It's competent at infrastructure - delivering mail, assigning network addresses, setting up trade protocols, etc. - but almost completely useless when it comes to actually governing its members. This is exactly what its founders wanted.
• Kim Newman's superhero pastiche "Coastal City": the eponymous city is explicitly stated to be No Communities Were Harmed New York City, and there are two throwaway references to the Allied Nations building.
• The AlternateHistory.com timeline Washington Burns sees a UN analogue called the Global Peace Council established after the Global War of the late '30s-early '40s. Aside from the different name and being based in Rome instead of New York, it functions in much the same way as the real-life UN.
• The Centenal Cycle features Information. It is essentially a hybrid between Snopes, Google, and the United Nations, combining the power of the latter two. They even have peacekeeping squads that are engaged in both diplomacy and education.
• Tides of Protomis has the USN - Or United Solar Nations. Its members including both nations on earth, and the few independent states that have popped up in space. Though, they've been likened to a "Glorified Advisory Board", and don't have much influence.
• Galaxias by Stephen Baxter, set in 2057, has the Federation of Independent States, which one character who's old enough to remember calls "The UN without the deliberate mistakes".
• Fire on the Mountain is an alternate history that diverged from reality in 1859. Something called the UN exists in alternate 1959; but it has quite different members, function, and organizations. It is headquartered in Jerusalem, which is part of a Palestine that acquired independence from the Ottoman Empire under unspecified circumstances.

Live-Action TV

• The Stargate SG-1 episode "The Torment of Tantalus" speaks of the Alliance of Four Great Races between the Asgard, Ancients, Furlings, and Nox. Ernest Littlefield's notes called it a "United Nations of the stars,"^note the United Nations wouldn't be founded until several months after Ernest was stranded in 1945, but the name was being used for the war-time allies and had already been suggested as a possible name for a post-war replacement for the League of Nations but as the Asgard are the only remaining members to interact with the cast on a regular basis little is known beyond that.
• Babylon 5:
  • The eponymous station served as a United Nations of sorts, with ambassadors from the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, the Narn Regime, the Centauri Republic, the Minbari Federation, the Earth Alliance, and the Vorlon Empire each having a vote on various diplomatic resolutions. Often (as with the Real Life UN) this council proved ineffective in some crucial matters, ultimately (by admission of Ivanova in the Season 3 opening monologue) failing in its mission for peace as the Shadow War expanded. It didn't help that one of the ambassadors (Kosh, the Vorlon) rarely even showed up to the meetings, despite that ostensibly being his only official reason to be there, or that the representatives would sometimes cast their vote in spite of their government's instructions (Londo, and Ivanova acting as Sinclair's proxy, both in the same episode).
    • It also didn't help that the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, consisting of dozens of races, only had one vote on the council, which is what eventually led to the League's dissolution.
  • The Interstellar Alliance, which formed toward the end of the series after the Earth Civil War, was probably a more effective version, as each member was mutually protected from aggression by the treaty binding all members, which was enforced by the organization's military force, the Rangers.
• The Tomorrow People (1973) has the Galactic Federation who seem to be roughly along these lines, especially in the last story "War of the Empires": They have a council made up of members of different races and accord developing worlds protected planet status that officially bars advanced aliens from interfering with them, but in practise they have no real way of enforcing their laws and their attempt to broker peace between the Thargons and Sorsons ends in failure (although they promise to reform and get rid of the bureaucracy they are mired in after the Tomorrow People narrowly prevent Earth being caught in the crossfire of the war).
• Sliders: In "The Great Work", the Human Spirit Hemispheric Alliance had jurisdiction over half of this world until it was overthrown by the Volsangs.

Poetry

• "Locksley Hall" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson correctly predicts aviation, aerial commerce, and aerial warfare, then predicts that the wars will be ended by "the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world".

Tabletop Games

• In Crimestrikers, Creaturia has a (mostly) benevolent One World Order, led by a parliamentary body called the Creaturian Council that fits this trope.

Video Games

• In the X-Universe series the five core races (Argon, Boron, Paranids, Split, and Teladi) form a group called the Commonwealth, or more formally the Community of Planets. The Teladi spearheaded its formation in the course of their efforts to enrich themselves off of trade, which the rivalry between the Argon/Boron and Paranid/Split alliances made difficult. The Commonwealth members still fight occasionally but they also band together against common threats such as the Khaak.
• Mass Effect:
  • The Citadel government is headed by a Council of appointed representatives of races that have demonstrated a commitment to the welfare of the entire alliance, both economically and militarily. Initially it's just the asari, turians, and salarians but after Mass Effect, humanity gains a seat (or in one ending, takes it over completely). The Council is somewhat of a benevolent dictatorship in that any decision they give must be abided by, and non-Council races can only make their case and hope the Council agrees with them. Unusually the Council can enforce its decisions fairly readily: though it doesn't have a formal military of its own it does have an office of elite covert operatives, the Spectres, who legally answer only to the Council. Larger problems still require member governments' troops, though.
  • The Systems Alliance, the de facto government of humanity, was originally founded as an effort of Earth's individual nations, as a means to organize the colonization of space (hence the name: systems as in "ones other than Sol"). At first, it had absolutely no power on Earth at all. It was only when the First Contact War started that they came into their own: while the various Earth nations bickered about what to do, the Alliance sent in its own "peacekeeping" forces to kick alien ass. This lead to the Alliance being given the power to conduct diplomacy and war with alien powers without consulting the old nations — and since this includes the terms of humanity's Council association (and later membership), they have basically all the power they could want.
• UPEO, short for "Universal Peace Enforcement Organization", in Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere is an international peacekeeping entity in a 2040s Strangereal where the national governments have long been supplanted by a world-spanning Corporatocracy. They are the last relic of the national state era and are therefore incredibly unfit to handle serious Corporate Warfare that forms the premise of the game's plot.
  • In the Ace Combat Strangereal Universe, UPEO is actually an organization under the Neo United Nations (NUN), which is itself a successor to the earlier International United Nations (IUN), which is itself a successor to the Congress of Nations (based on the League of Nations). All probably fit this trope. They all, also, do very little in the plot of the games.
• The Secret World: The Council of Venice is equivalent to the UN for the secret conspiracies right down to the blue beret-clad soldiers and the crippling in-fighting.
• Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri has the Planetary Council, a UN-like organization that consists of all human factions (the two Progenitor factions in the Alien Crossfire expansion can't join) except those who have been eliminated or committed major atrocities. The Council can first be called by a faction that has obtained communication frequencies with all others. The first task is always to elect the Planetary Governor. A Governor can call the Council to make a single decision every 10 years, while any other faction can do it every 20 years. For most decisions, the factions have 1 vote each, although the Planetary Governor has veto power. When electing a Planetary Governor or a Supreme Leader (diplomatic victory; only possible in the expansion if no aliens remain), the number of votes each faction has depends on its population and secret projects. Before a vote, it's possible for backroom deals to take place, where one faction agrees to vote a certain way in exchange for something else. For example, the UN Charter is initially in force, meaning all atrocities result in harsh penalties from other factions. The Charter can be repealed (and reinstated later) by a vote in the Council, resulting in such actions being considered normal parts of warfare (except the use of Planet Busters).
• In Civilization V, after a civilization meets all the others and researches the Printing Press tech, the World Congress is founded (you can change the name to whatever you want, though). Every civilization starts with 1 delegate, but the host civ receives an extra delegate. The number of delegates also depends on the civ's current tech era and whether the United Nations wonder has been built. From the Industrial era onward, each allied city-state also grants a delegate to the Congress. Delegates are also granted to a civ that builds the Forbidden Palace wonder and for placing spies as diplomats into other civs' capitals. Enacting a World Religion or World Ideology means that any civ that follows those tenets also grants 2 additional delegates. Each session, the host (and one other civ) can propose a new resolution. The next session, the civs vote on the two proposals by distributing their delegates into the "yea"/"nay" selections for each proposal. A delegate can't be used on both resolutions at the same time. When selecting a proposal, the info box will let you know which civs will be happy/angry over this. Naturally, this can seriously affect your diplomatic standing with the other civs. You can trade for votes using the diplomacy screen, but only with civs with which you have diplomats. A civ that has pledged to vote a certain way cannot go back on its word.
• In Stellaris, the 2.6 update and the Federations DLC, the Galactic Community can be formed after at least one empire has met half of all other empires, and members can vote on various resolutions and sanctions. The number of votes an empire has is determined by their Diplomatic Weight, which is determined based on economic strength, population, tech level, and military strength, with each contributing more or less to Diplomatic Weight depending on what resolutions have passed. The Galactic Community can also create a Galactic Council of the three most powerful empires (resolutions can increase the Council size up to five or shrink it down to just one) based on diplomatic weight that can call emergency votes, denounce other empires, and veto resolutions depending on what powers they're granted.
  • Downplayed Trope with the UNE (United Nations of Earth). As their name and origins in Sol III indicates, they are the real-life United Nations, though somewhere before 2200, they became superpower.
  • The Nemesis DLC gives the Galactic Community the ability to elect one of their members the Galactic Custodian when a threat to the whole galaxy emerges, giving them far-reaching emergency powers to organize the galaxy’s response to it. Custodians have a term limit, but with enough support and/or diplomatic weight, that limit can be abolished, allowing the Custodian to declare themselves emperor and reform the Galactic Community into a subordinate Galactic Imperium.
• Disco Elysium has the Moralist International, typically referred to as the Moralintern, the setting's equivalent of the EU that espouse the virtues of "Moralism" (the setting's version of Radical Centrism) and within the background crushed the Communist revolution that took over Revachol and has since then been enforcing their authority via gunships in the sky

Webcomics

• The Avatar fan comic The Legend of Genji has the Global Assembly, an international organization founded by Avatar Korra with the purpose of promoting peace and cooperation between all five nations. Its membership is comprised of representatives from each nation and is headquartered in Republic City, much like how the real-life U.N. has its headquarters in New York City (which Republic City was based on).
• In Terra, the creation of one of these is a long-term goal of the Resistance. As it stands two powerful factions are fighting over everybody else's heads and everyone else is getting thoroughly screwed.
• Schlock Mercenary features the "League of Galactics", source of countless "back-patting tales of heroic diplomacy", which represents thousands of governments throughout the galaxy. None of its activities, though, have any significant effect on galactic events.

Western Animation

• The DC Animated Universe has a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of the United Nations, which is called the World Assembly and has its headquarters in Metropolis, as seen in the Justice League episode "The Enemy Below". Incidentally, the real UN had appeared at least once in an episode of Superman: The Animated Series.
• Futurama has the Democratic Order Of Planets (DOOP). They do, however, employ Twenty-Five-Star General Zapp Brannigan, meaning their efforts at peacekeeping and diplomacy are... somewhat hampered. He once tried to have an alien species sign a 'Peace Treaty' that was actually a declaration of war.
• The Peaceful Nations Alliance in M.A.S.K..
• The Legend of Korra: In the first season, Republic City (founded as a place where citizens of each Elemental Nation could live together) is governed by a council with a representative of each nation (Fire Nation, Earth Kingdom, Air Nomads, and both Water Tribes). With the exception of Tarrlok and Tenzin, they don't seem to do much, which explains why the following seasons have a president instead. Not that he does much better.
  • It should be noted that the national representation seems to be a more recent development (a flashback to what seems to be the original council explicitly shows the lone Air Nomad national not on the council) and at all times, seems to have a mix of benders and non-benders. Some fans have argued that the odd balancing of the representation (Earth and Fire have a vote a piece, Water has two votes, and Air has one vote that represents what amounts to just above a Nuclear Family in a city the size of New York City) should have provided some ample conflict that was never seen.
• Babar has the Jungle Federation which is basically the United Nations of animal kingdoms.

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