History Main / ResurgentEmpire

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', completing the Crimson Flower route ends with [[spoiler:the [[TheEmpire Adrestian Empire]] successfully unifying Fódlan once again by conquering the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and the Leicester Alliance, states which had previously seceded from the empire over the course of the past thousand or so years, thus restoring the empire to its full glory]]. Surprisingly, this was technically a means to an end for [[spoiler:Edelgard, whose foremost intent is to shatter the control the Church of Seiros has on the continent in order to facilitate her plans for continent-wide reform of what she views as a broken system. Leicester was conquered because the remaining leaders with votes seceded to Edelgard after she defeats Claude, whether he's killed or spared (and Edelgard's entire reason for even attacking Leicester was the safe assumption Claude would attack Adrestia's flank while warring with Faerghus). Meanwhile, Faerghus made the unfortunate mistake of siding with [[SinisterMinister Rhea]], whose burning of the capital city Fhirdiad coupled with the death of Dimitri in battle against Edelgard not long before this point leaves Faerghus too weak to ever recover without the Empire taking control]].

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''{{Literature/Foundation}}'': In "The General", the titular character is General Riose (based on UsefulNotes/FlaviusBelisarius), working to expand [[GalacticSuperpower the Empire]]. For almost two centuries, their government has been [[UngovernableGalaxy losing control over the Periphery]], regressing to the [[VestigialEmpire galactic core]]. General Riose has heard rumours of the Foundation [[RisingEmpire rising to take their place in the galaxy]]. In the name of the Emperor, he leads a fleet of ships against the Foundation to bring their territory back under Imperial command. He's incredibly successful, but the Emperor (used to the political infighting of their DecadentCourt) demands their return, executing them on charges of treason (he assumes a popular General would want to rule, since everyone else at court is trying to do the same thing). This accelerates the Empire's death from political in-fighting.

* [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror ISIS]] established itself as a caliphate and their plan was to unite all the Islamic world under their rule, as well as reclaiming areas that were ever under Muslim control in history (UsefulNotes/{{Spain}}, UsefulNotes/{{Portugal}}, UsefulNotes/{{Greece}}, the Balkans, UsefulNotes/{{Israel}}, the UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}}). There was even [[https://akm-img-a-in.tosshub.com/indiatoday/images/story/201508/map-story_647_081015061820.jpg a map showing how far their aims spread]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Anbennar}}'': If one of the shards of the Phoenix Empire refounds it, this trope becomes part of the ideological underpinning of the Empire: the Phoenix Empire is seen as eternal not because it can't fall, but because even ''if'' it falls it will like its namesake inevitably eventually rise again (helped by the fact that the Empire had ''already'' gone through a cycle of rise-fall-rise-fall in the backstory).

** ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'' has the Minutemen, a loose confederation of farms and settlements who help and protect each other, roughly fashioned after the colonial Minutemen. In their case, they are likely to fit even discounting associations with Old America -- the Minutemen were once one of the most powerful forces in the Commonwealth, but a series of events weakened them until by the time the game starts only ''one'' person still self-identifies as a Minuteman. Then the Sole Survivor encounters him, and a questline about reforging the Minutemen starts with the potential to lead them into becoming ''the'' most powerful faction in the Commonwealth (and if not still a major force).

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