History Main / RivalScienceTeams

-> '''''"WERNSTROM!!"'''''
-->-- Professor Farnsworth, ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}''

* ''Anime/CodeGeass'': The teams working under [[BunnyEarsLawyer Earl Lloyd Asplund]] and [[MotherlyScientist Rakshata Chawla]] for Britannia and the Black Knights, respectively, inspired the creation of this page. The two sides frequently bemoan the other side's achievements -- Lloyd expresses irritation that "That Woman" completed the Hadron Cannon, and Rakshata is irritated that "the Earl of Pudding" completed the Float System first. By second season, both sides have replicated the achievements of the other side, created counter measures to those that were problematic in the first season, and are busy rolling out new technology. It's a LensmanArmsRace, alright. [[spoiler:It was [[DarkHorseVictory Nina]] who won by perfecting the FLEIJA warhead]].
* ''Anime/TenchiMuyo'' has a borderline case of this. While Washu is in the supporting cast of the series, and Dr. Clay is the lackey of a distant goddess, the part of the series that has the two of them in conflict have them acting far more as main hero and villain than would normally fit this trope. However, they did go to the same school, do know each other's technology thoroughly, have the same "animal themed hair," and dislike each other intensely. [[spoiler: In fact, Dr. Clay's cold dismissal of the clay-based clone he created to kill Tenchi after taking a kidnapped Ryoko's appearance makes Washu VERY pissed off and she angrily asks him how dare he call himself a scientist]].
* Possibly, Shinigami captain Mayuri Kurotsuchi vs the Arrancar Szayel Aporro Grantz from ''Manga/{{Bleach}}''. Two squicky MadScientist guys [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate with very low morals]].
** [[spoiler: Mayuri won. Not even close.]]
** Based on filler there seems to be a similar rivalry between Mayuri and the Captain Unohana in regard to medical treatment, Ichigo himself comments on the atmosphere between the two.

* The comic ''ComicBook/NinjaHighSchool'' has a lower level rivalry going on between Professor Steamhead and Professor Beanhead over whether steam or beans will save the world. (Both are classic one-technology [[MadScientist Mad Scientists]] who use their chosen technology to accomplish everything).

* ''Film/{{Twister}}'': Jonas' corporate-sponsored tornado chasing team vs. Bill and Jo's independent tornado chasing team. Exacerbating things is the fact that Jonas is using his own version of the Dorothy device and Bill feels like he ripped them off, but to Jonas' defense at the time he had left Jo's team the idea was still unrealized. Still, Rule Of Symbology (homogenized black vehicles and a team that depends on technology vs. RagTagBunchOfMisfits led by someone with a "gift" for predicting tornado's reactions) and Jonas being a hard-core SmugSnake means that he's going down ''[[AssholeVictim hard]]''.
* ''Film/PacificRim'': granted they are one-man teams and both on the side of humanity, the rivalry between the gimpy British theoretician Herman and the tatted-up, Kaiju-groupie experimentalist Newton is pretty epic

* Manticore's Sonja Hemphill and her team at [=BuWeaps=] versus Havenite "[[WrenchWench tech-witch]]" Shannon Foraker's ''Bolthole'' team in David Weber's ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series, with the only deviation from the trope being the fact that it is ''genuinely'' NothingPersonal on both sides. By [[spoiler:''A Rising Thunder'']], Haven has -- thanks to Eloise Pritchart's [[spoiler:[[RefugeInAudacity audacious diplomatic gambit]] -- concluded not only a peace treaty but a ''military alliance'' with Manticore against the Solarian League and the Mesan Alignment. (It's a long story -- [[LongRunners literally]].)]] One of the first things the [[spoiler:Grand Alliance]] does is [[spoiler:send Hemphill and her staff off to Bolthole]] to [[spoiler:combine forces with Foraker and her team]]. The two are on a FirstNameBasis within five minutes of meeting each other, and are promptly nicknamed the "Demonic Duo" by the title character. The fanbase was ''delighted''.
* Foaly the centaur and Opal the pixie are rival scientists from Eoin Colfer's ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'' series. Foaly works for the LEP (fairy police force) and Opal is the prodigious heir to the Koboi company and becomes a main villain, even before they were on opposite sides of the law they were extremely competitive.
** To a lesser extent, Foaly and Artemis himself are rivals because of the human boy's impressive intellect and ability to decipher and outwit superior fairy technology.
* The Boys in the Back Room in Creator/DrSeuss' ''The Butter Battle Book''.

* Black Mesa and Aperture Science from ''VideoGame/HalfLife''/''VideoGame/{{Portal}}''. While Cave Johnson, Aperture's CEO, regarded Black Mesa as his ArchEnemy and thought they made money out of stealing his technology, Aperture is seen by them as their UnknownRival. In reality, Black Mesa asked for limited funding for military projects and churned out BoringButPractical solutions, while Aperture would demand billions and deliver disaster after disaster until somehow they found a way to twist physics into a pretzel (and in the process, completely ignored the original purpose of the project). Scientists who worked for Black Mesa regard Aperture as brilliant, but catastrophically reckless, as seen when in ''[[VideoGame/HalfLife2 Half-Life 2: Episode 2]]'', some eagerly discuss reclaiming a lost Aperture icebreaker, which they hope has samples of the amazing technology they came up with, but they are likewise understandably wary, given how it somehow managed to teleport to the Arctic from its drydock in Aperture's HQ... which is in the depths of an abandoned salt mine in Michigan.
** Interestingly, in a parallel timeline, Johnson succeeded in buying out Black Mesa. After renaming it Blaperture Science, he proceeded to chew out the resident scientists [[{{Irony}} for being reckless enough]] to carry out experiments which could [[VideoGame/HalfLife cause a resonance cascade]] and immediately shut everything down.
* [[BeethovenwasanAlienSpy Einstein vs. Tesla]] in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert''. And then Einstein (''again'') vs. Yuri in ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2 Red Alert 2]]''.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Dishonored}}'', Corvo's allies the Loyalists field Piero Joplin against the Regency's Anton Sokolov. Both men also have a personal rivalry going since their days in academia. Of course, [[spoiler:this becomes a moot point when Corvo kidnaps Sokolov, taking him (but not his technology) out of the running. Surprisingly enough, Piero and Sokolov soon become friends who work very well together and in the Low-Chaos ending, cure the plague]].

* The U.S. Government in ''Webcomic/StringTheory2009'' intentionally sets this up, thinking it will make the scientists work faster. It backfires.
* ''Webcomic/AtomicRobo'' runs on this. On the side of good, we have Tesladyne, run by Robo and staffed by his [[ScienceHero Action Scientists]]. For the bad guys, we have various Axis organizations during (and occasionally after) WWII, and in more recent settings, [[WellIntentionedExtremist Majestic 12]] and its successor Task Force ULTRA, [[spoiler: which manages to temporarily take over Tesladyne.]] There's also Big Science Inc., a Japanese {{Kaiju}}-busting outfit that fields its own {{Sentai}} team, as well as a number of other more morally grey teams, such as Department Zero (Soviet FormerRegimePersonnel who run the super-science black market) and China's Most Perfect Science Division, [[spoiler: whom [[LaResistance the Tesladyne resistance]] turns to to help rebuild Robo while ULTRA is after their heads.]]

* In ''Literature/{{Twig}}'', Sylvester, who is a {{Tykebomb}} created by Professor Hayle of Radham Academy, discovers that the Bad Seeds, suicidal clones of children who assassinate their parents in grisly murder-suicides, are in fact the result of a rival project which was rejected for funding in favor of his own.

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' movie ''The Beast With A Billion Backs'' has Professor Farnsworth and the Planet Express team fight Wernstrom's team for the right to participate in a scientific expedition... in a game of "deathball", which involves the players running around in a giant marble labyrinth game trying to knock giant ball bearings into holes.
* Lincoln Clark and Fenwick are rival pre-teen geniuses in ''WesternAnimation/{{Dogstar}}'': Lincoln on the side of the good guys, and Fenwick working for the BigBad.

-> '''''FARNSWORTH!!'''''
-->-- Professor Wernstrom, ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}''

* 'Webcomic/AtomicRobo'' runs on this. On the side of good, we have Tesladyne, run by Robo and staffed by his [[ScienceHero Action Scientists]]. For the bad guys, we have various Axis organizations during (and occasionally after) WW2, and in more recent settings, [[WellIntentionedExtremist Majestic 12]] and its successors. There's also Big Science Inc., a Japanese {{Kaiju}}-busting outfit that fields its own {{Sentai}} team, as well as a number of other "national" science teams.

* 'Webcomic/AtomicRobo'' runs on this. On the side of good, we have Tesladyne, run by Robo and staffed by his [[ScienceHero Action Scientists]]. For the bad guys, we have various Axis organizations during (and occasionally after) WW2, and in more recent settings, [[WellIntentionedExtremist Majestic 12]] and its successors. There's also Big Science Inc., a Japanese [[Kaiju]]-busting outfit that fields its own [[Sentai]] team, as well as a number of other "national" science teams.