History Main / TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized

-->--Mao Zedong

* The Scoi'a'tel in ''TheWitcher''. The game does go to great lengths to explain the understandable grievances that led to their formation and continued existence (being conquered, treated as second-class citizens and subjected to violence and pogroms by the humans), but also makes it very clear that they are ruthless murderers who attack innocent or not-so-innocent civilians, sometimes in particularly gruesome ways, rather than the oppressing government's armed forces. Quite a few Dwarven and Elven NPCs express their profound dislike for them.

** In the vein of Weather Underground, Europe had its share of student revolutionaries; Red Army Faction, or RAF, and Brigade Rosse in West Germany and Italy respectively. The former is somewhat notable to only officially cease activity at the late half of the 90's. Both organizations were behind a small number of violent acts towards the governments.
** The Cuban Revolution too. ''El Paredon'' anyone?

** The Weather Underground, a militant faction of SDS, traded flower power for fire power... but, propaganda to the contrary, ''averted'' this. They never actually killed anyone; the only deaths they caused were three of their own members [[HoistByHisOwnPetard killed in a bomb-assembly accident]]. The bombs they set off were invariably in deserted locations, where the residents had been given warning to evacuate.

* ArmoredCore is filled a bunch of extremely violent rebel movements who are either a) A fake movement or b) plans to start their rebellion by causing as much destruction

* KenMacLeod's Fall Revolution books jump back and forth in time quite a bit, but often imply that the various quasi-utopias in the far future were arrived at by, say, slaughtering a large percentage of the world's population.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/guillotine.bmp

* On an earlier note, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_constitutional_crisis_of_1993 1993 Constitutional Crisis]] initiate
d by then-President Boris Yeltsin might be thought of as a much-delayed counter-revolution, rather than a revolution, but given that the Soviet Union had already been fairly peacefully dissolved more than a year earlier, Yeltsin's orders for elite Army Divisions stationed in Moscow to fire ''live ammunition'' at the country's own parliament in order to avoid his own impeachment and dissolve the Supreme Soviet could definitely be thought of as not civilized.

** This is due to the fact that, due to the genocide against tamilians that has been going on in Sri Lanka, peaceful protest will not work.

* The Takers in ''{{Geneforge}} 2'' (and to a lesser extent in ''Geneforge 1'' as well). Then a fair chunk of the rebellion (especially the [[OurDragonsAreDifferent drakons]]) in ''Geneforge 3'' and ''4''.

* On an earlier note, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_constitutional_crisis_of_1993 1993 Constitutional Crisis]] initiated by then-President Boris Yeltsin might be thought of as a much-delayed counter-revolution, rather than a revolution, but given that the Soviet Union had already been fairly peacefully dissolved more than a year earlier, Yeltsin's orders for elite Army Divisions stationed in Moscow to fire ''live ammunition'' at the country's own parliament in order to avoid his own impeachment and dissolve the Supreme Soviet could definitely be thought of as not civilized.

* The English "Civil Wars". The romanticised view paints this as a falling-out between King and Parliament leading to several battles and ending with the King's unfortunate execution followed by an "interregnum" during which England is ruled by the firm-but-fair Oliver Cromwell before eventually ending in an inevitable restoration and the new King and Parliament making peace. The actual history has an incompetent, tyranical King dragging his country into a bloody, fractious civil war and who refuses to compromise with Parliament despite his eventual defeat (after seven years of warfare!) leading to his execution, the abolition of the monarchy and the institution of a republic. The republic leads to an autocracy, then the republic again, then a monarchical restoration followed by further political upheaval, another King overthrown, a parliamentary-appointed monarchy and the overthrown line seeking to regain the throne at which they make two serious attempts. All in all, the civil strife started in 1642 continued to have repercussions, on and off, [[strike:for over 100 years]] well into the next millennium if one includes Cromwell's ReignOfTerror in Ireland.

* Arguably, the Supertrooper riot in GalaxyRangers. They were [[SuperSoldier created from birth to be living weapons]]. A CorruptBureaucrat circulates PsychoSerum in the barracks, and the Troopers go berserk, believing that their creators are out to kill them. With the sole exception of the youngest, they all go PhlebotinumRebel, ''kill'' one of their handlers on-screen (and possibly more off-screen), and escape.

was a case of the dogs going rabid, biting back, and then breaking down the fence.

** In the vein of Weather Underground, Europe had its share of student revolutionaries; Red Army Faction, or RAF, and Brigade Rosse in West Germany and Italy respectively. The former is somewhat notable to only officially cease activity at the late half of the 90's. Both organisations were behind a small number of violent acts towards the governments.

* ''AWorldOfLaughterAWorldOfTears'' sees the nonviolent Civil Rights Movement collapse thanks to a drastic misreading of the political climate by President Disney. Martin Luther King, Jr. gets publically egged, destroying his credibility, and the movement falls under control of the Nation of Islam. One word: ''jihad''.

ThatMitchellAndWebbSound played with this by having a pair of vapid TV talking heads discussing, in a very civilized manner, the boiling alive of QueenElizabethII after a clearly violent and horrible revolution.

* Those LaResistance factions that actively oppose the government in the StrugatskyBrothers ''Prisoners of Power'' act like this. Or worse.

** Given that most Visitors lived in sealed starships and thus had the option of simly leaving unharmed, it's not quite as nasty as it sounds.

-->'''Yuri''': "I guess [African militants] can't own up to what they usually are: a federation of worse oppressors than the last bunch of oppressors. Often, the most barbaric atrocities occur when both combatants proclaim themselves freedom-fighters."

* Between 1980 and 1983, the StarWars fandom was inundated with stories speculating on how -- or if -- Han Solo might be thawed out of the carbonite in which he'd ended TheEmpireStrikesBack. One particularly memorable story, "The Revenant", had him being unfrozen ''thirty years later''. Leia is dead, Chewbacca is dead, Lando is dead ... and Luke, who arranged Leia's death to bring a group of unaligned planets to the Rebellion's side, is First Citizen of a New Republic as oppressive as ever the Empire was.

** In RealLife, when the War of Independence ended, a significant amount of the next decade was spent by the new Irish government trying to get rid of the IRA, since they had been fighting more for independence than for democracy. The fact that the Civil War (which is the worst things got) was gotten out of the way early on is probably the main reason Irish democracy survived.

-->'''Yuri''': I guess [African militants] can't own up to what they usually are: a federation of worse oppressors than the last bunch of oppressors. Often, the most barbaric atrocities occur when both combatants proclaim themselves freedom-fighters.
* The anti-government resistance group, the Fishes, quickly turn into this in ''ChildrenOfMen'' when the more radical Luke hijacks the organization.
* ''{{The Battle Of Algiers}}'', where we see bombings and shootings directed at civilians.

** In fact, after the Rebels won at Endor, destorying the Death Star, one of its first acts was to execute Grand Admiral Osvald Teshik for war crimes after he was captured in this battle. With Palpatine and Vader dead, he was pretty much one of the highest ranking Imperials captured. Tragic fact that Teshik was one of the few decent Imperials.

** In fact, after the New Republic liberated Coruscant, one of its first acts was to execute Grand Admiral Osvald Teshik for war crimes. With Palpatine and Vader dead, he was pretty much one of the highest ranking Imperials captured. Tragic fact that Teshik was one of the few decent Imperials

*The Reverse Organization from ''TegamiBachi'' have typically been displayed as not terribly nice people, but the government they've been rebelling against has shown hints of being equally not nice, particularly if half the things Reverse has said about them are true. However, they may have [[MoralEventHorizon exceeded this trope and gone on to just straight 'evil']] following recent chapters, wherein they [[spoiler: used an innocent young nun as a human sacrifice, essentially destroying her soul and condemning her to a slow death in order to lure in a gigantic Gaichuu to attack the capital.]]

* A lesser known part of Japanese history: United Red Army and Japanese Red Army. URA was a domestic terrorist group, who ended up [[WeAREStrugglingTogether killing mostly its own members during a siege at a mountain hotel]]. JRA is mostly known for its affiliation with the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine and ''enacting a terrorist attack on an Israeli airport''.