The Remnant / Live-Action TV

• The 100:
  • Mount Weather (which houses the descendants of the members of the U.S. Government who survived the end of the world) provides a Tragic Villain example of this for the first two seasons, referring to their leader as “President”, and generally acting like they’re the legitimate authority.
  • Defied at the start of season 5, when Octavia forcibly merges the survivors of all twelve tribes into Wonkru, preventing any of them from continuing on as separate factions.
  • Another (rather extreme) example occurs at the end of season five, where the last know survivors of the entire human species, numbering less than 500, flee Earth aboard the Eligius IV.
• One episode of The Adventures Of Sir Lancelot had a remnant of the Roman colonial government of Britain hiding behind a section of Hadrian's Wall, pretending to be ghosts.
• Andor makes passing references to such groups existing among the isolated early cells of what would eventually become the Rebel Alliance in the original Star Wars trilogy. When Luthen tries to get Saw Gerrera to cooperate with other cells, Saw points out the enormous gulf in goals and viewpoints between the groups, mentioning for example that one group is made up of former Separatists (who wanted to break away from the Republic in the prior war and simply carried on fighting after the Separatists lost and the Republic morphed into The Empire), while another group are "Neo-Republicans", who presumably are loyal to the old Republic and want to restore it to what it was before it was corrupted into The Galactic Empire. Saw scoffs at the idea that the cells will ever come together and form a cohesive group.
• Dylan Hunt is this for a while in Andromeda, trying to restart the Commonwealth despite being the last soldier of the High Guard in existence.
• Around the World in 80 Days (2021): 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 crew of the Minbari warship Trigati in Babylon 5, who refused to surrender to Earth as the rest of the Minbari mysteriously did when they had Earth beaten and humanity on the brink of genocide at the conclusion of the Earth-Minbari War.
• The crew of the Battlestar Pegasus in Battlestar Galactica continued their war against the Cylons long after (as far as they knew) the government was completely wiped out and their warship was the only human fighting force left in the galaxy.
  • The Galactica herself is also an example, though for the most part, they tended only to fight the Cylons when escaping wasn't immediately possible. They do spend most of the Mini Series trying to figure out who is in charge and getting the ship re-armed so they can get back into the fight, it isn't until the end that Roslin convinces Adama that running away is the better option.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Order of Aurelius has existed for centuries as a cult of vampires who worship the Old Ones and wish to bring them back. Initially the main threat of Season 1, after the Master's death and their failed attempt to resurrect him, only the Anointed One and a few others are left by the time of Season 2's "School Hard," and they decide that whoever kills Buffy will take the Master's place. When their plot is ruined due to Spike's impulsive tendencies, he decides to simply kill the Anointed One and takes control of what's left of the order, dissolving it completely.
  Spike: From now on, we're gonna have a little less ritual and a little more fun around here!
• Day Of The Triffids 2009: A group of soldiers and government officials who retain their sight are seen in the first half of the series preparing to retreat to the countryside to try and reestablish society away form the dangerous triffids and scores of blinded people.
• Doctor Who:
  • In "Revenge of the Cybermen", the Cybermen encountered are small group of stragglers from the Cyber War reduced to skulking about the galaxy in a worn-out warship.
  • In "Remembrance of the Daleks", the Seventh Doctor destroys the Daleks' home planet and then persuades the lone surviving Imperial Dalek to kill itself as it has "no superiors, no inferiors, no reinforcements, no hope, no rescue!"
  • When the Ninth Doctor attempts a similar tactic on another lone Dalek in "Dalek", however, he only succeeds in making it angrier.
    Then I shall follow the Primary Order! The Dalek instinct to destroy, to conquer!
  • Most Dalek factions in the revival (or at least the RTD era) were this, as the scattered survivors of the apocalyptic Last Great Time War. The revival's first season ended with the Doctor facing a two-hundred-ship Dalek fleet... after establishing the Time War had ended with ten million ships being wiped out.
  • This seems to happen throughout history with the humans and the Cybermen. One destroys the other, but not quite, then the other recovers and comes back, rinse and repeat.
• In Firefly, Malcolm Reynolds, on the losing side of the Independents' revolt against the Alliance, still believes that he was on the right side, and ekes out an existence on the outskirts of civilization with a few like-minded comrades.
  • Played with throughout the series. While everyone thinks that Mal is The Remnant — ready to take the fight to the Alliance again on behalf of the Independents — he really just wants to forget the Alliance exists and live his own gorram life. The mistaken belief that Mal is still fighting the war is invoked in "Bushwhacked" and several times during the movie.
    Trade Agent: You all are Browncoats, eh? Fought for independence? Petty thieving ain't exactly soldiers' work.
    Mal: War's long done. We're all just folk now.
  • Note that for a while, he was The Remnant — it's mentioned in various sources that he fought on at Serenity Valley with his troops for several weeks after the leaders of the Independents stopped fighting and began negotiating terms of surrender.
  • Zoe was initially part of a more hardcore Remnant group, as she joined a faction called the Dust Devils when she was released from the Alliance prison camp and carried on with what was essentially a terrorist campaign against the Alliance for some time until she left it behind.
  • Other remnants show up in the comics as well.
• Jess Evans and his Confederate renegades in the Frontier Circus episode "The Hunter and the Hunted". Refused a pardon after the Civil War, they moved west and have been living as outlaws. Several are Still Wearing the Old Colors.
• Game of Thrones:
  • The Wildlings have become this by late Season 5, when anywhere between 50,000 to 100,000 of them are massacred at Hardhome by the White Walkers. Only a small fraction of that number manages to escape with the Night's Watch fleet and then, even more of them are killed while fighting in the Battle for Winterfell. However, they're now at least somewhat safe south of the Wall, mostly because of their service and sacrifice to Jon Snow, who as King in the North, has placed the surviving Wildlings under his banner and protection.
  • The Stark children become this early in the series when their most prominent members are either dead or missing, their army is scattered, their household is ruined and family members are exiled by the crown, and their family name is also almost extinct in the male line. As Bran tells Rickon, if anything were to happen to him and Robb, he is the heir to Winterfell. With Bran going beyond the Wall, Sansa and Arya trapped in the South, and Jon being an illegitimate son in the Stark family, Rickon is the only one with the Stark name left in the North — one who Bran expects will be fostered with the Umbers, loyal bannermen.
  • Daenerys is the last known Targaryen. House Targaryen themselves are The Remnant of the Valyrian dragonlords.
    Maester Aemon: A Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing.
  • Stannis is this as far as the War of the Five Kings is concerned, as of Season 4. He is the only original rival claimant to the Iron Throne who hasn't bent the knee to Joffrey at King's Landing. Balon Greyjoy has presumably not bent his knee yet, but he is not considered a threat like Stannis is.
• In one episode of Gilligan's Island, a demented Japanese soldier who doesn't realize WWII is long-over arrives on the island and begins ambushing the castaways one by one.
• Jeremiah: The militaristic Valhalla Sector is made up of government members who avoided dying with the rest of the world's adults by withdrawing to a bunker until the initial plague died out.
• Jericho (2006): Hawkins, Chavez and Cheung are unusual intelligence operative versions of this, trying to achieve their original mission as their country becomes the Divided States of America.
• Kamen Rider Decade: Super Shocker in the Grand Finale movie Final Chapter. It's the remains of Dai-Shocker's massive Monster of the Week army after the really big fight at the end of All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker, rebranded under Narutaki (whose hatred of Decade has evolved from trolling to outright villainy) and a revived Doctor Shinigami.
• Kung Fu (1972): In "The Last Raid", Kwai Chang Caine must rescue people who have been kidnapped by a Confederate soldier who still thinks the Civil War is going on.
• The American POWs in the Lexx episode "Apocalexx Now" — the Fighting 78th, a Marine Platoon that was captured during the Vietnam War and released during the episode, circa 2001 AD, under the impression that the war was still raging.
• The Last Ship features plenty of these, both positive and negative throughout the series given how many nations get ravaged by the Avian flu. The main characters (U.S. Navy servicemen sent on a mission to Find the Cure! by a now-fallen government) provide an example of this themselves for the first season or two that actually succeeds in their mission and restores their government and many others. Villainous counterparts include Admiral Ruskov (a Renegade Russian seeking to control the cure), Amy Granderson (a minor government bureaucrat-turned-Wasteland Warlord backed by remnants of the Maryland State Police), and Peng Wu (the former head of China's State Sec, who took over the restored Chinese government post-plague due to being the highest-ranked official left).
• In the MacGyver (1985) episode "Humanity", MacGyver tangles with the K-Force, a group of Praetorian Guard still loyal to Romania's dead tyrant Ceauşescu.
• Col. Emmett Anderson (played by Kurtwood Smith) in the pilot episode of The Magnificent Seven TV series, "Ghosts of the Confederacy," who leads a group of ex-Confederate soldiers who roam the west preying on isolated towns.
• The main antagonists of The Mandalorian are a faction of former Galactic Empire military units who refuse to acknowledge the Empire's collapse, and are rampaging across the Outer Rim (where the New Republic's ability to enact its authority is fairly limited) as they try to gather the resources needed to retake control of the galaxy. Season 3 reveals that they're actually part of a larger Imperial Remnant controlled by a Shadow Council of high-ranking officials which presents the facade of being reduced to fragmented warlords to lull the New Republic into false security while they slowly regain their strength.
• The New Avengers: In "K is for Kill", a cadre of Soviet soldiers are accidentally awoken from their cryogenic sleep and embark on following their original Cold War orders; attacking several former military targets that have been abandoned for decades.
• Northern Exposure:
  • "The Quest" features a hermit soldier seemingly left behind from when Japan controlled the Aleutian Islands (actually he knows the war is over, surrendered, and went home, before deciding to move back to Alaksa and live like a holdout soldier several decades later due to being bored with retirement).
  • The Whole Episode Flashback "Zarya" features Princess Anastasia of Russia, who survived the Revolution and is living in secret in an Alaskan colony with a handful of soldiers, a cabinet minister, a priest, and a few servants, while warily conducting peace negotiations with Vladimir Lenin.
• The last surviving generals of the Machine Empire attacked Earth in the Power Rangers Wild Force episode "Forever Red", four years after the Empire, and other forces of evil, were destroyed at the end of Power Rangers in Space.
• Pompey's army in Rome is reduced to this after he loses a great battle and he is dumped as its leader. Cato and Scipio take over but they are defeated in Africa.
• The first episode of Rutland Weekend Television has a sketch about a group of British soldiers who remain unaware WWII is over... and who are stationed on the Isle of Wight, a couple of miles off the English coast. It also has a Major who has been told the war is over, but is incapable of understanding the concept.
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World: In "Tribute", Malone, Marguerite, and Summerlee are taken prisoner by a World War I pilot, Hans Dressler, who still thinks WWI is going on.
• In the Star Trek: The Original Series "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", the crew encounter an alien fugitive with the right side of his body colored white and the left colored black. Eventually his pursuer, who has the same colors but reversed arrives to capture him for causing "race riots". Eventually, the pursuer hijacks the Enterprise to try to return the fugitive to their home planet to face trial only to find that the planet had destroyed itself in the race war. Despite being offered a place to live by Kirk, both of them blame each other's race for what happened and start fighting, eventually taking their fight to the destroyed planet below.
  Sulu: But the cause they fought about no longer exists. Does it matter now which one was right?
  Spock: All that matters to them is their hate.
  Uhura: Do you suppose that's all they ever had, sir?
  Kirk: No, but that's all they have left. [dejected] Warp factor 4, Mr. Sulu. Starbase...4.
• In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Emissary", the Enterprise is sent to intercept a Klingon warship whose crew has been in suspended animation since the Klingon-Federation war 75 years ago and will awaken in range of Federation outposts. Despite fears that they might have to destroy the ship to save the outposts, Worf saves the day by assuming temporary command of the Enterprise, tricking the Klingons into thinking the Klingon Empire won the war (without ever exactly saying so) and convincing them to stand down.
• In Star Trek: Voyager, a member of the Maquis used a plan too complicated to describe here (Brainwashing was involved) to cause the Maquis members of the Voyager crew to mutiny. This is really a subversion; the guy in question was in reality never a part of the Maquis because his more questionable methods of freedom fighting disgusted them, and was trying to revive the Maquis through his brainwashing partially to get back at them for rejecting his help.
• In Season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery, it's revealed that a galactic cataclysm called "The Burn" damn near ended interstellar civilization. The Federation has been reduced from 350 members at its peak to just 38, and the seceeding worlds include three of its founders. The eponymous ship proves key to determining the cause of The Burn and bringing the Federation Back from the Brink.
• The final two episodes of Star Trek: Picard reveals the ultimate foe of the series to be the Borg Queen and what's left of the Borg Collective, completely and utterly ravaged from what Admiral Janeway did in the Grand Finale of Voyager. They attempt to rebuild their forces by forcefully assimilating young Starfleet members, but Picard and his old crew are able to stop them and destroy the Collective as we know it.
• Supernatural:
  • After Lucifer was thrown back into his Cage during the Apocalypse, thanks in part to the help of the demon Crowley, who subsequently took over Hell, there remained a remnant of demons who were still loyal to Lucifer and seeking to release him again, which the reigning Kings of Hell never quite managed to stamp out.
  • Henry Winchester was briefly this to the American branch of the Men of Letters, being the only member to escape the massacre of the group and coming to the present as a Fish out of Temporal Water, who becomes desperate to restore them (and his relationship with his family) being willing to go back in time to achieve that even though it could retcon his grandsons Sam and Dean out of existence.
• Super Sentai: Most crossovers involve remnants of the previous villain group teaming up with the current one.
  • JAKQ Dengekitai vs. Gorenger involves remnants of the Black Cross in various Zolders joining up with CRIME to avenge their organization against their nemesis.
  • Gekisou Sentai Carranger vs. Ohranger has Bara Mobile, the last of the Bara Machines, who plans to restart the Baranoia Empire from the ground-up as the "Car-Human Empire" by fusing humans to cars by making them biologically compatible; after initially being protected by the Carrangers due to them mistaking him for a good guy, he teams up with Bowzock once everything is clarified to realize his mad goals.
  • Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger vs. Gaoranger involves the last two Orgs: Tsuetsue and Yabaiba, teaming up with the Jakanja to destroy the Hurricaneger, Gouraiger, Shurikenger and especially the Gaoranger by stealing the latter's powers to use them for evil, both are destroyed midway through the film by the combined finishers of the team.
  • Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger vs. Hurricaneger: Wendinu and Furabijo show up alive and well despite their apparent onscreen deaths and free a lost member of the destroyed Jakanja Ninja Clan: Janil Iga, who teams up with the Invasion Garden Evolian to help them conquer the world and destroy both Hurricaneger and Abaranger.
  • After the Zangyack Empire is defeated in the Final Battle of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, it's stated in a newspaper later that the Empire has split into multiple warring factions. One remnant faction, led by the deceased emperor Ackdos Gill's nephew Bacchus Gill, shows up in Tokumei Sentai Go Busters Vs Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger The Movie as the main antagonist though he has already beaten the Gokaiger and strong-armed them into service when he shows up.
    • An episode of Gokaier also features remnants of the Gaiark from Engine Sentai Go-onger getting into conflict with the Zangyack over who gets to conquer Earth.
  • A stageshow for Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger had the team teaming up with Red Falcon of Choujuu Sentai Liveman to battle a surviving Armed Brain Army Volt robot.
  • After the Gangler Crime Group is defeated at the end of Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patranger, the ICPO turn their attention to hunting the "Gangler Remnants" that have managed to outlast the organization and are still causing trouble. One Gangler Remnant teams up with the remnants of the Jark Matter in the crossover movie with Uchu Sentai Kyuranger. Another Remnant teams up with the Druidon Tribe in Kishiryu Sentai Ryusoulger.
  • Super Hero Mama League implies ALL Sentai enemy groups never fully die out and every Sentai team despite mostly going back to their former lives occasionally have to suit up again to mop them up once in a while.
• In Torchwood, the Torchwood Institute was once a massive organisation with access of powerful aliens weapons and talking about rebuilding the British Empire. After 2007 it's half a dozen people in a Elaborate Underground Base under Roald Dahl Plass. It became defunct in 2010, when Jack left Earth, and by 2011, it was four people on the run, basically running under Torchwood as a codeword. With the death of one of its remaining four members, its status as of the end of Torchwood: Miracle Day is unclear.
• Truth Seekers: The ghost of Private Adkins believes that World War II is still ongoing, and jams all communications signals near the Portland Beacon in an attempt to frustrate German air raids.
• An episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea dealt with a Japanese holdout (see Real Life examples below).
• The Walking Dead Television Universe:
  • Fear the Walking Dead:
    • The Stalkers, the secondary antagonists of Season 7, are the remaining members of Teddy's Apocalypse Cult from the previous season, who blame the protagonists for the failure of his promised vision from coming to pass.
    • The PADRE organization was originally a US Army program to create an island safe zone capable of providing material support towards reclaiming and rebuilding the mainland. However, after most of the leadership was killed by walkers, the remaining members reorganized it as a cult running on a twisted version of the founding General's vision.
    • After the protagonists overthrow PADRE's leadership midway through Season 8, including causing the death of Shrike and exiling her co-leader Crane, the latter returns in the first part of the Grand Finale with his remaining Mooks to try and reclaim control. He's utterly inept at it, and gets himself and his men all killed.
  • The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live reveals that the Civic Republic Military was formed from what was left of the Pennsylvania National Guard, which during the Fall rebelled against the federal government's desperate attempt to napalm Philadelphia to contain the dead, and afterwards helped transform the city into the Civic Republic.
• Westworld: The Confederados are a group of hosts in the role of ex-Confederate soldiers who roam the outer lands of the park, and are a part of the War storyline. They are known as the "Army of New Virginia", but most people simply call them "Confederados". They are described as not willing to surrender at the end of the Civil War, and now work as mercenaries south of the border.
• Z Nation:
  • Both regular versions of this and more sympathetic ones appear from time to time, but the most notable is General Arthur McCandles, who commanded the infection response forces in Virginia, and still broadcasts as if he's in command of a major force, but by the time they main cast encounter him, he's a bedridden Zombie Infectee who only has a single, neurotic living soldier left under his command.
  • The first few episodes of Season 4 feature a Marine lieutenant and a few soldiers (one of whom is his daughter) running a benevolent refugee camp.
  • The penultimate episode of Season 4 reveals that the remains of the federal government have survived a decade into the apocalypse by holing up in the Mount Weather facility. By the time the protagonists stumble on them though, everyone's died off except for one bureaucrat who has become President by default and two Secret Service agents protecting her.
  • Not military remnants, but still equally problematic: one of the major threats of Season 2 is the Zeros, the sole surviving Mexican Cartel in the post-Z-Day world, which has made its Bread and Circuses with "Z-Weed", marijuana fertilized with zombie bodies (that is somehow much more potent because of this) and that are seeking a cure for zombification (and killing all scientists that don't develop one effective, or fast, enough) as a way to gain more power.