History Main / BackFromTheBrink

* In ''Fanfic/TheSwarmOfWar'', James/Overmind (formerly the leader of the biggest Zerg Brood on Aiur) arrives in the [=W40K=] universe with only eight Overlords and some escorts from his force. Three of the Overlords are lost to local [[GiantFlyer Giant Flyer]]s, so he makes do with just over twenty land units and a lot of dead meat from the crashed Overlords. Oh, and a large Khaydarin Crystal from a Protoss Pylon.

-->'''Kyle Reese:''' "''There was a nuclear war. A few years from now, all this, this whole place, everything, it's gone. Just gone. There were survivors. Here, there. Nobody even knew who started it. It was the machines, Sarah...Defense network computers. New, powerful, hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination...Most of us were rounded up, put into camps for orderly disposal...Some of us were kept alive, to work, loading bodies. The disposal units ran night and day - We were ''that close'' to going out forever. But there was one man who taught us to fight, to storm the wire of the camps, to smash those metal motherfuckers into junk. He turned it around. He brought us '''back from the brink'''. His name is Connor. John Connor. Your son, Sarah - your unborn son.''"

* By the late 90's, all of the competitors to the UsefulNotes/IBMPersonalComputer and UsefulNotes/MicrosoftWindows had been driven out of the market except for Apple, whom many predicted would not last much longer. Their market share had shrunk considerably, with seemingly little chance of improving due to their nearly decade-and-a-half old classic Mac OS being woefully out-of-date, lacking key modern operating system features like protected memory and preemptive multitasking. Having failed to develop a replacement OS in-house, Apple decided to acquire one from another company, and chose to purchase [=NeXT=], the company that Creator/SteveJobs had started after getting kicked out of Apple, which brought him back inside the latter company. Though he was only an "advisor" at first, he quickly became interim and then fulltime CEO, and proceeded to revive the company with exciting new products such as the original [=iMac=], Mac OS X, the [=iPod=], and eventually the [=iPhone=]. Today, Apple, far from being on the brink of going out of business, is one of if not the most successful companies in the world.

* By the late 90's, all of the competitors to the UsefulNotes/IBMPersonalComputer and UsefulNotes/MicrosoftWindows had been driven out of the market except for Apple, whom many predicted would not last much longer due to their shrinking market share, and their nearly decade-and-a-half old classic Mac OS being woefully out-of-date, lacking key modern operating system features like protected memory and preemptive multitasking. Having failed to develop a replacement OS in-house, Apple decided to acquire one from another company, and chose to purchase [=NeXT=], the company that Creator/SteveJobs had started after getting kicked out of Apple, which brought him back inside the latter company. Though he was only an "advisor" at first, he quickly became interim and then fulltime CEO, and proceeded to revive the company with exciting new products such as the original [=iMac=], Mac OS X, the [=iPod=], and eventually the [=iPhone=]. Today, Apple, far from being on the brink of going out of business, is one of if not the most successful companies in the world.

* In the the late 90's, many computer industry analysts predicted that Apple was not long for this world. All of the other competitors to UsefulNotes/IBMPersonalComputer and UsefulNotes/MicrosoftWindows had been driven out of the market, and it looked like Apple would be next. It didn't help that their nearly decade-and-a-half classic Mac OS was woefully out-of-date, lacking key modern operating system features like protected memory and preemptive multitasking. Having failed to develop a replacement OS in-house, Apple chose to acquire one from another company, and chose to purchase [=NeXT=], the company that Creator/SteveJobs had started after getting kicked out of Apple, which brought him back inside the latter company. Though he was only an "advisor" at first, he quickly became interim and then fulltime CEO and proceeded to revive the company with exciting new products such as the original [=iMac=], Mac OS X, the [=iPod=], and eventually the [=iPhone=]. Today, Apple, far from being on the brink of going out of business, is one of if not the most successful companies in the world.

* ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander'' oddly has the reverse of this. Your side is just about to ''win''. The 'enemies' are themselves making their final desperate attempt to fight Back From the Brink and the single player campaign simply has you... delay them a bit.
** More dramatic than it sounds... both enemy factions make very, very ''good'' final and desperate attempts: whichever side you play, the final battle takes place on Earth with the clock on the planet-killing WaveMotionGun ticking.
*** Specifically the Aeon are just about to win in all three campaigns. The UEF campaign has you trying to get said weapon built in time, while the Cybran campaign is about shutting down interstellar travel to play for time. In the Aeon campaign you have to keep an omnicidal splinter group of the Aeon from being the ones to finish the conquest, and then do it yourself.

* ''VideoGame/{{Myth}}'' starts out with only a single major city of ''The Light'' still standing through forty years of war. After discovering a powerful magic artifact which allows several victories to be scored, pushing back the torrential hordes of darkness with great difficulty, the magical coup that allowed them turns on you and causes a civil war amongst The Light's already dwindling ranks. Upon regrouping, a desperate plan is concocted in which almost all of your remaining allies are implied to have purposely sacrificed themselves to provide a distraction, allowing you to capture the BigBad. When you finally destroy him, the ending CutScene indicates that you and your entire squad were wiped out in the resulting explosion.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/RiseOfLegends'', in which Miana is simply one of several dozen Vinci city-states and your fight is primarily a war of conquest.
** Played straight in the Alin campaign, however, where the Alin Kingdom has been pushed back to the city of Azar Harif by the Dark Alin by the time [[TheHero Giacimo]] gets there.

* In November 1941 the USSR seemed to be living its darkest hour. Kiev had been taken and its 38,000 Jews summarily shot by the ''Einsatzgruppen'', Leningrad was besieged and its two million people were beginning to die of starvation, and Moscow was practically on the front lines. In reality German strength had hollowed out significantly, with German logistical strength suffering CriticalFailure that month as German non-preparation for subzero operations - a conscious choice taken so that the maximum amount of ammunition could be delivered - resulted in the train and truck fleets being reduced to a tenth of survival requirements as water pipes froze and burst. But still, had the USSR blinked or given in, it could have tipped the other way, and the Red Army and the people of the Soviet Union bravely rallied out and defeated the Germans.
** Arguably, this was more or less the turning point for UsefulNotes/WorldWarII in general -- prior to that moment, France and nearly half of Europe have fallen to the Germans, [[UsefulNotes/FascistItaly much]] [[UsefulNotes/TheFrancoRegime of]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Romania}} the]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Hungary}} other]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Finland}} half]] were collaborating with them with varying intensity and eagerness, the UK constantly endured German aerial bombings, the Soviet Union (as mentioned above) was teetering on the edge, and the US still maintained official neutrality. While there were some previous minor victories for the future Allies -- notably, denying Axis and pro-Axis regimes a significant foothold in the Middle East and Iran -- it was the ending months of 1941 when the first large-scale turning of tides came, with the USSR stalling German offensive before reaching Moscow, and the near-simultaneous official declaration of war by the US following the Pearl Harbor attack.

'''Enforcer Drone''': [[AC:I have not yet begun to fight.]] \\

* VideoGame/SuperSmashBros

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'' does this ''a lot'', first with saving the last crystal from the forces of darkness and then bringing back stability to the world.

* VideoGame/Warhammer40000SpaceMarine starts with planet Graia overrun by Orks, who prevent reinforcements from coming in thanks to air superiority and control of a surface-to-orbit weapon. The first things the player does are crashing their airship and blowing up their gun, opening the way for Imperial Guard reinforcements.

* In VideoGame/SengokuRance, when Franchise/{{Rance}} becomes the secret ruler and takes control over the once powerful Oda Family, it has been reduced to only one territory. Then after Rance starts his AttackAttackAttack tactic he somehow manages to rapidly conquer the other factions.

** In Part II of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', while the Azure Moon, Verdant Wind, and Silver Snow routes play this trope straight, Crimson Flower puts a unique spin on it. [[spoiler:This time, the shoe is on the other foot; ''you're'' the empire out to crush the last remnants of the old order so you can usher in a new age of meritocracy and create a world where anyone can rise to the top.

** In-universe, this is the case for the [[OurElvesAreBetter Dunmeri]] [[TheClan Great House]] [[ProudWarriorRace Redoran]]. House Redoran was almost completely destroyed during the [[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion Crisis]] after they rallied to defend against the invading [[LegionsOfHell Daedra]]. ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'''s ''Dragonborn'' reveals that Redoran has recovered quite well in the [[TimeSkip 200 years]] that followed, organizing most of the relief efforts following the [[ColonyDrop Red]] [[ChekhovsVolcano Year]] and raising a [[BadassArmy standing army]] to fight back against the [[LizardFolk Argonian]] invasion. Now, they're the current leaders of the Dunmer Council and their city of Blacklight has become the capital of Dunmer controlled Morrowind following the Argonian sacking of Mournhold.

** In Part II of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', while the Azure Moon, Verdant Wind, and Silver Snow routes play this trope straight, Crimson Flower puts a unique spin on it. [[spoiler:This time, the shoe is on the other foot; ''you're'' the empire out to crush the last remnants of the old order so you can usher in a new age of meritocracy and create a world where anyone can rise to the top.[[note]]Then again, considering that Adrestia was [[VestigialEmpire in a rather unstable and declining state]] in the beginning and ends up subjugated by the victorious faction in other routes, this is also, in a way, played straight on this route, as [[TheEmperor Edelgard]] and [[PlayerCharacter Byleth]] push the (heavily reformed) empire -- [[ResurgentEmpire having reunited the continent under its rule]] -- to a new age of power and prosperity.[[/note]]]]

** In ''[[VideoGAme/SuperSmashBrosBrawl Brawl]]'''s Subspace Emissary, [[spoiler:[[BigBad Tabuu]] knocks out all of fighters appearing before him with one-shot of his Off Waves attack. Luckily, King Dedede had stashed away the trophies of [[Franchise/{{Kirby}} Kirby]], [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Luigi]], and [[VideoGame/{{Earthbound}} Ness]] with timed release revival brooches, allowing them to go and revive everyone.]]

** In Part II of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', while the Azure Moon, Verdant Wind, and Silver Snow routes play this trope straight, Crimson Flower puts a unique spin on it. [[spoiler:This time, the shoe is on the other foot; ''you're'' the empire out to crush the last remnants of the old order so you can usher in a new age of meritocracy and create a world where anyone can rise to the top.[[note]]Then again, considering that Adrestia was [[VestigialEmpire in a rather unstable and declining state]] in the beginning and ends up subjugated by the victorious faction in other routes, this is also, in a way, played straight on this route, as [[TheEmperor Edelgard]] and [[PlayerCharacter Byleth]] push the (heavily reformed) empire -- having reunited the continent under its rule -- to a new age of power and prosperity.[[/note]]]]

** In Part II of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', while the Azure Moon, Verdant Wind, and Silver Snow routes play this trope straight, Crimson Flower puts a unique spin on it. [[spoiler:This time, the shoe is on the other foot; ''you're'' the empire out to crush the last remnants of the old order so you can usher in a new age of meritocracy and create a world where anyone can rise to the top.]]

* France during UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution was on a low ebb in 1793, its armies were suffering setbacks, the Austrians were marching to the capital and General Dumouriez, the hero-general of Valmy had become a defector along with other nobles. The coalition now included England who put a blockade on all food imports, the famine was increasing and there was political instability like no tomorrow with many people expecting that the New Republic would be easily defeated and steamrolled. So what do France do? They [[TookALevelInBadass got their act together]], discover their revolutionary spirit and start winning. In the space of a single year, the French expanded their army by mass conscription, restructured it from the ground up while pioneering administrative reforms that put them ahead of the rest of the Continent.

* UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. By early 1918, the UsefulNotes/GermanEmpire had practically conquered Eastern Europe, were about to come to a permanent peace settlement that would give them most of their conquests, all the Central Powers were- while shaken- still in the fight, and the Balkans front had been effectively pacified with the fall of Romania and Serbia. The Germans and Austro-Hungarians were shifting forces for two massive simultaneous assaults to try and destroy the Western Allies by striking both in France and Italy- and would drive so far that they began minting medals in preparation for the falls of Paris and Venice, all while the Entente could not even divert needed units from Africa because of Von Lettow's actions and the Senussi rebellion. The only GOOD news for the Western Allies was that the US had now entered the war, but it was stuck with a seriously under-strength, under-equipped, undertrained, and under-experienced force on the wrong side of the Atlantic Ocean. Then came the Balkan offensive, the Turkish surrender, Diaz's reforms and "three great campaigns" to anihilate the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Belleau Wood, Amiens, the Hundred Days, and finally the October mutiny that struck at the heart of the Kasierreich.
* The early days of the Korean War. Vastly enlarged and lavishly supplied and backed by Soviet equipment and advisors, the North Korean military pushed South of the DMZ and readily routed every Western Allied force that tried to halt or at least delay it, to the point where all that the Western Allies were pushed back to their final stronghold at Pusan and the surrounding towns, which the North Koreans rapidly besieged using superior numbers and equipment, with the Western Allied commanders there living hand-to-mouth on reinforcements from Japan, and even THEN the North Koreans came close several times to crushing the main line of defense and taking Pusan. And THEN Inchon happened, which saw the North Korean military be encircled, decimated, and forced to retreat North while much of its strength was trapped in the South and destroyed. This war swung both ways, too. When the Chinese intervened, it was explicitly because the UN had reached from the DMZ all the way to the Yalu River. The very same Yalu River that serves as the Korean northern border, in fact - last stop, final destination, end of the line. The Chinese proceeded to demonstrate every guerilla and mass warfare tactic they learned in their Civil War to retake all of North Korea and reach shelling range of Seoul before their offensive was finally stopped, with the final result being...[[ShootTheShaggyDog the border ending up right back where it started, give or take a few kilometres]].
* The reinstatement of Admiral Yi Sun Shin. After several dramatic victories against the Japanese invasions (1592-1598), he was rewarded in 1597 with accusations of treason, arrest, torture, and demotion to foot soldier. His successor proceeded to lose the entire Korean navy in a single battle through startling incompetence, leaving only 13 ships that had withdrawn rather than fight (none of which were the famous turtle ships). After being restored to command and rallying what was left of his fleet, Admiral Yi proceeded to fight a fleet of 133 Japanese warships and over 200 support craft, routing his foe while destroying 31 enemy ships outright and crippling over 90 more, with no losses. Japanese morale was, fairly understandably, crippled by this, and the Koreans would win every naval engagement until the end of the war.
* UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic during the UsefulNotes/PunicWars, especially after Cannae. It's estimated that the battle wiped out a whopping ''80%'' of the entire Roman army. This catastrophic loss drove people to such despair that the Romans actually performed acts of HumanSacrifice to appease the Gods who seemed to have abandoned them. They then spent the next few years steadily supporting and helping their clients in a war of attrition, enjoying a lucky break with Hannibal not marching straight to Rome[[note]]or so it seemed to them at the time; Hannibal had no practical way of breaching the city walls, and didn't have the numbers or supplies to maintain a siege while the other Italian cities remained loyal to Rome[[/note]]. Thanks to generals like Scipio Africanus and Marcellus in addition to the Roman massive pool of manpower, eventually the Romans built a new army from scratch, out-strategized the Carthaginians, turned their Numidian cavalry against them, and came out on top at the Battle of Zama.
* The UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire that followed up the Roman Republic had a habit of this. While territory was lost multiple times, crafty Emperors found ways to come back from massive defeats and humiliations time and time again. While they eventually were conquered by the Ottoman Turks, by that point they had come back enough times from near destruction that historians ponder if they could have recovered just as they had against the Arabs and the Seljuk Turks with a comparatively minor change of events.
* Happens multiple times during the UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar. First Bohemia revolts and throws Imperial forces out of Bohemia. The Empire strikes back, including beating an attempted Danish invasion, and looks on the verge of total victory. Cue Swedish intervention, that in a few years completely shatters the imperial stranglehold on northern Germany and has Swedish troops as far south as Munich. Then Gustav II Adolf dies, the Protestant alliance falls apart and the Emperor manages to drive the Swedes back to the Baltic again. [[YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle And we're only in the 1630s!]] France enters the war and it is finally brought to a negotiated settlement, with France and Sweden the nominal victors.
* By the time UsefulNotes/AlfredTheGreat came to power as the king of Wessex, the fledgling kingdom was the only Saxon kingdom left in England, with every other one fallen to the [[HornyVikings invading Danes]]. Unfortunately for the Danes, turns out Alfred the Great was a colossal BadassBookworm to the Nth degree. Between organising a rebel army in the swamps and dressing as a bard to infiltrate Viking camps and learn their plans, he [[CurbStompBattle defeated the Danes decisively]] at the Battle of Edington, then used the resulting peace to build up a network of defences to make his kingdom impregnable, while also doing other awesome things like codifying a system of laws and building the framework for an education system. Alfred was also savvy enough to realize that the Vikings didn't have much knowledge of siege warfare, and that most of them returned home to Scandinavia when the raiding season was over. So instead of throwing away men on grand pushes to take back the entire island, he focused on securing and fortifying each town they recaptured, slowly retaking the island one mile at a time. When he died, his [[BrotherSisterTeam son and daughter]] went on to deliver crushing defeat after crushing defeat to the Vikings and reclaim all the territory lost over the years. His grandson Athelstan mopped up the last Viking enclaves and became the first king of a unified and powerful England which was never threatened by invading Scandinavians ever again (bar the invasion by Cnut, and Harold, and...).
* By 208, Cao Cao's forces controlled two thirds of China's people and was on the brink of unifying it. Then came the Battle of Chibi; against all odds, Cao Cao's forces were nearly annihilated, and China would remain divided for another seventy-two years--and that only briefly, remaining unified for about 25 years before falling into disunion again for nearly 300 years after that.
* In 300 BC, when King Min took the throne, Qi was among the strongest states in China's Warring States period, if not the most powerful. But his corruption and incompetence were so legendary that in 284 BC, it was completely conquered by Yan, and King Min was executed. Oh wait, Qi was ALMOST completely conquered; although seventy cities were taken, two remained independent -- which was enough for Wangsun Jia and Tian Di to reconquer all the land Yan took.

* In mid-2015, the [[UsefulNotes/{{Syria}} Syrian civil war]] had been grinding on for over 4 years. Under fire from [[ChurchMilitant ISIS, the al-Nusra Front]], [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized and dozens of other rebel groups]], it looked like Bashar al-Assad and his Syrian Arab Army were on their last legs. The United States along with other powers in the region such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia were already making plans for a Syria without Assad. Then in September 2015, [[DidntSeeThatComing Russia entered the fray on Assad's side.]] With backup from Russian [[GunshipRescue airstrikes]], [[TheCavalry armor battalions]], and [[ElitesAreMoreGlamorous special forces]], the SAA began to make a real comeback, and as of 2016 Assad re-emerged as a viable player in the war.\\
* In the UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar Prussia was badly outmanned and outgunned and its only ally (Britain) was busy fighting France and did not much care to save them. Then the Austro-Russian alliance does not march on Berlin (which was virtually undefended) and the Russian Czar dies. The next Czar is a great admirer of Prussia and its leader and the country is saved once more. A hundred years later Prussia would establish the German Kaiserreich. Another forty years after that the Prussian led Kaiserreich would go toe to toe with the rest of the world and come within an inch of winning bringing France to the brink of defeat and causing the utter collapse of Russia in the process.
* There is some evidence that humanity as a whole has been through this at least once. At least if the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory Toba catastrophe theory]] is to be believed...

** David Petraeus lead The Surge that significantly reduced the violence in Iraq. He did this using his reinforcements to implement a strategy of counter-insurgency. Coalition troops lived among Iraqi civilians and protected them rather than sortieing out from massive secured compounds outside Baghdad. After a brief spike, fatalities fell by nearly a third and continued dropping until the total withdrawal was complete. Given that events are still in motion in that nation, [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment it is debatable whether he was really successful in the long run.]]

* You start ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'' with two low-level nobodies, a caretaker, and a hamlet that's virtually ruined. Over the course of the game you build it up into a thriving settlement, especially if you have the "Crimson Court" DLC (which lets you construct new buildings, while the base game is focused on repairing and enlarging the ones you already have).

*** Specifically the Aeon are just about to win in all three campaigns. The EA campaign has you trying to get said weapon built in time, while the Cybran campaign is about shutting down interstellar travel to play for time. In the Aeon campaign you have to keep an omnicidal splinter group of the Aeon from being the ones to finish the conquest, and then do it yourself.

* The ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' series had fallen on hard times going into the [=2010s=], with the last major releases in the series, ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn Radiant Dawn]]'' and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance Path of Radiance]]'', underperforming. Believing that the series was running out of steam, Nintendo gave developer Intelligent Systems permission to work on one more game, with the condition that if this game also failed to succeed, the series would be retired. The end result was ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'', a game that would serves as the series's SwanSong if it failed to succeed, featuring elements from past games meshed into a big love letter to the fans. It quickly went on to be a KillerApp for the UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS, and the series has enjoyed continued success ever since.