Galactic Conqueror

aka: Galactic Conquerer

"All were forced to submit to the Star Conqueror's will."

"Choirs of daemons howl in salute as they sense his flagship exiting from warpspace at the edge of the system. Chains of cities across the surface of the planet are set ablaze in welcome as his battle barge slides into orbit. Thousands of slaves are sacrificed in celebration as he sets foot upon the surface, the very earth beneath him soaked in the blood of his victims."

— Bloodquest, Warhammer 40,000

Generally below the Dimension Lord but above The Emperor and the Evil Overlord lies this character.

Maybe they want to conquer the universe. Maybe they want to kill everyone in it. Whatever they do, they'll be crazy-mad powerful, so it's going to take a whole boatload of heroes to take them down.

Sometimes they'll have armies to back them up, but more often than not, they'll work alone, relying on their incredibly vast cosmic powers to crush the good guys. Many have both.

These characters are usually male, although modern works are offering more and more females the opportunity to enslave entire galaxies. Distinguishable from the Eldritch Abomination in that these guys have somewhat human motives for what they do. Often, this is what the Sealed Evil in a Can turns into once it's unsealed. Multiversal Conqueror takes it up a notch.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The Holy Nightmare Corporation (Nightmare Enterprises, or NME, in the dub), the Big Bad Nightmare's company in the Kirby anime, is stated to have already successfully conquered the universe and defeated at least one major resistance movement... but a Kid Hero is shaping up to take them down.
• King Vega from UFO Robo Grendizer, one of the Mazinger Z sequels. He was emperor of a warrior race and ruled over a planet was dying due to overexploitation from one of its resources -a radioactive and highly unstable ore named Vegatron-, so he started to conquer other planets to find another world to settle on. He used to say his army was the most powerful one in the universe.
• Dragon Ball examples:
  • Vegeta was introduced as one in Dragon Ball Z: the the leader of the Saiyans who conquered countless planets, exterminated their populations, and sold them off as real estate to the highest bidder. His organization only consists of three people and some Saibaimen, but they're powerful enough that they don't need anyone else. He's first introduced in the ruins of a planet he conquered, filler has him blowing up another one for kicks, and the plot of his arc is triggered by one of his minions attempting to recruit Goku into his group, drawing Vegeta's interest to the Earth. He claimed to be the strongest being in the universe and even the highest god of the galaxy was terrified of him. Even after all their divine training and power-ups, the heroes collectively could not stand up to him and only finally drove him off via a combination of dumb luck and every single one of them ending up killed or crippled.
  • Vegeta's later revealed boss, Frieza, took this title after Vegeta's defeat. Immensely powerful to the point of being considered invincible, he nonetheless usually has his army to do the actual fighting. Known for exterminating large portions of planets' populations and enslaving the rest, or simply killing off the entire population and selling the planet to the highest bidder, his name was feared by all spacefaring civilizations throughout the galaxy. The fact that he could blow up your planet on a whim just served as further incentive to surrender.
  • Lord Slug from Dragon Ball Z: Lord Slug is a Composite Character of Freeza and King Piccolo from early Dragon Ball.
  • Cooler from Dragon Ball Z: Cooler's Revenge is Freeza's older brother, who is even more powerful than him.
• Zoltar from Battle of the Planets (and only Battle of the Planets, due to a Dub-Induced Plotline Change. The original Science Ninja Team Gatchaman was set entirely on Earth, villains and all).
• Zarkon and his son, Lotor from Voltron.
• Reinhard von Lohengramm, the protagonist of Legend of the Galactic Heroes is a rare heroic/anti heroic example of this trope. He wants to unite all of space under his rule. The thing about it is that his Empire is actually pretty awesome because he's a superb ruler. They're opposed by the democractic Free Planets Alliance. A huge topic in the series is basically the conflict between a good autocracy and a rotten democracy.
• Empress Ramaj from Crest of the Stars, like above-mentioned Reinhard von Lohengramm, is also a rare maybe-heroic example. She is an empress of a militaristic feudal space empire that conquers every world it encounters and the show revolves around her empire's war against The Alliance of democratic states. The goal of The Empire is to subjugate humankind to its benevolent authoritarian rule and lead it to an era of endless peace and prosperity. She is not the protagonist, though, but a Big Good and grandmother of the protagonist.
• The aptly-named Sailor Galaxia from Sailor Moon. No points for guessing that last planet she needs to conquer to complete her quest.
• To Love Ru has Lala's father being one of these.
• Boros from One-Punch Man is an expy of Freiza and conquered most of the universe. He grew bored of having no challenge but came to Earth to fight Saitama after a prophet pointed him in the right direction.

Comic Books

• Marvel Universe:
  • This is a general characterization for most cosmic-centric supervillains within the Marvel Universe. Some prominent terran-centric supervillains like Doctor Doom and Kang the Conqueror occasionally branch off into this trope, when their ambition exceeds their normal boundaries.
  • Thanos of Titan has embodied this trope in the past, with his obsession with ultimate power and Death being his primary motivations. His first appearance had him conquering his home planet of Titan with similar plans for Earth. Characterization Marches On, however, and he is now simply a Genius Bruiser Omni-Disciplinary Mad Scientist whose motivations range from It Amused Me to Omnicidal Maniac, the latter to impress his girlfriend (or, currently, because she dumped him and he's going to take it out on everyone else). And when we mean "Obsession with Death" we mean the Stalker with a Crush kind of obsession. Said girlfriend is Death.
  • Fantastic Four: Annihilus, The Supreme Intelligence, at times the Skrulls and, mostly whenever Lilandra isn't in charge, the Shi'ar emperor/empress tends to fill this role too, especially when Vulcan was in charge.
  • Terminus the cosmic strip-miner.
  • A large percentage of the giant monsters from Marvel's pre-super hero days were alien invaders (Goom, his son Googam, etc.). Even Groot who has since done a Heel–Face Turn, started out this way.
  • The Incredible Hulk: Arm'Chedon, also known as Armageddon, leader of the Troyjan Empire and foe of the Hulk during his days with the Pantheon. Arm'Chedon was so busy conquering planets that he literally did not notice that he had two sons until one of them died on earth harassing the Pantheon, and the other was later killed in trial by combat with the Hulk. He swore vengeance, but got all of one appearance until well over a decade later. Interestingly, his relative obscureness might have worked in his favor, as there's no sign that his empire suffered the massive amounts of destruction that Marvel's other galactic empires (The Kree, Skrulls, and Shi'ar) have in recent years.
• The DCU:
  • Across countless worlds, for countless eons, not a voice is raised in hope or joy. Across these worlds, these infinite lands throughout the cosmos, there is only Darkseid.
  • Brainiac. His goals and methods have varied a lot over the years, but he still usually fits this trope.
  • Mongul (both of them), the despotic ruler of War World. Galactic domination has always been his end game.
  • Despero and Kanjar Ro are much lower-tier versions of this trope. Kanjar Ro is usually treated as a joke villain these days.
  • Starro the Conqueror, although his more powerful appearances drift him more towards being an Eldritch Abomination.
  • The Emperor of the Sangtee Empire from Wonder Woman (1987) has conquered a slew of inhabitable planets and runs an Empire where chattel slavery is legal and the norm.
  • The Reach don't have as much firepower as the above, meaning they need to be more subtle. So they simply send out little "champions" to promising worlds, who gain the public's trust with acts of heroism while the Reach discretely secure control over all the planet's natural resources.
  • Lady Styx, debuting in 52. Originally intended to stand in for Darkseid, whom the writers felt was getting overused, she comes with the impressive distinction of her own Cavalry of the Dead.
• Megatron from the various Transformers canon. How much of the galaxy he has conquered varies and is often vague. Sometimes he just plans on enslaving the native populace of conquered planets or he cyberforms them, covering them in metal and killing all pre-existing life in the process.
• Khaal: The Chronicles of a Galactic Emperor is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, but granted he doesn't start out as one in the comic proper: he is introduced as a fearsome warlord in a prison spaceship that gets invaded by superior aliens, but Khaal manages to kill their leader and take control of the invaders. He turns his attention to the rest of the galaxy and aims to conquer every world in his way. The comic ends with him finding and conquering Earth.
• The current page's quote refers to an nameless Daemon Prince of Tzeentch in Bloodquest that leads an Black Crusade across the galaxy, as typical for Chaos Warbands. It's revealed that his host is none other than Captain Leonatos, the comic's Decoy Protagonist that pulled an Heroic Sacrifice to save his surviving teammates and was possessed by a daemon.
• Paperinik New Adventures has a few:
  • Evron Eleventh to the Fifth, leader of the Evronian Empire, is the latest representative of a fairly successful line of conquerors (in one issue an Evronian fleet's destruction is actually said to be the first time they lose a space battle), with the Evronians invading thousands of worlds without any opposition able to hold for long until Xadhoom came by and started decimating them, culminating in the destruction of the Imperial Planetoid with Evron Eleventh to the Fifth on board.
    • In a Bad Future Grrodon, the last Evronian spy on Earth, manages to rebuild the Empire and conquer the planet, starting Evron's conquests anew.
    • It's eventually revealed that there's multiple Evronian Empires, each with its own Imperial Planetoid: to prevent civil wars, whenever the population of a Planetoid grows too much they turn a planet into a spaceship, put half their population on it, clone a new Emperor, and send the new Imperial Planetoid to carve out its own Empire. The Evronian Empire defeated by Xadhoom is just one of many, one that was apparently about to divide itself when they earned her anger, with another losing most of its population to three Eldritch Abominations and later being finished off when Paperinik manages to drive their Planetoid into the sun.
  • The New Era stories introduce Moldrock, the ancient ruler of Corona, who used his own immense powers to subjugate the various city states, turn the planet into a lush world and then launch a conquest of the known world looking for proper opponents, at least until his own scientists manage to put on him a device that suppresses his powers and, unable to strip him of his powers for good, imprison him on the Pentadimensional World where his powers are severely limited.
  • Juniper Ducklair, the latest queen of Corona, eventually engages into this on her sister Korinna's suggestion, even using Moldrock to power a technology that creates nearly invincible warriors and open portals through dimensions. She abandons her ambitions when Moldrock escapes, single-handedly beats her armies into submission without killing anyone, and Paperinik and Everett's attempts to stop him from using the dimension-traveling technology for himself and Korinna's attempts at taking back control result in Moldrock and Korinna being stranded in another dimension and the near-destruction of Corona.

Fan Works

• The un-named MLP:FiM AU created by Wheller adapts Luna into one of these, having once observed a particular planet^* (that is heavily implied to be Earth) and felt inspired to unite as many planets as she could under one banner. Celestia opposed this, forcing Luna to intentionally become Nightmare Moon in order to get an edge on Celestia, and after she came back, played nice while secretly framing her sister as a tyrant^* (Not helped by the lengths that Celestia went to so as to ensure the technology Luna needed for her campaign would never be developed) and try to get her ousted. This wound up Going Horribly Right when Celestia chose to explain herself to Twilight and finally found the nerve to fight her own sister, leading to them both vanishing from Equestria. A century later, Celestia is indeed remembered as a tyrant, but Twilight only did that so Equestria could move forward without her. She made sure the truth about Luna did come out, and so Luna is remembered as "Luna the Mad" for her trouble.
• Varax from Dragonball Z: Legacies is an alien warlord who has lived for over eighty million years. In that span of time, he has conquered hundreds of galaxies, destroyed countless planets, and created several black holes. In the present day, he rules over a vast area of space known as the Helix Realm with an iron fist. He's shown to command a fleet of massive starships and has an army of mechanized soldiers and cyborgs to carry out his will. He's widely feared as the most dangerous being in the universe and even Frieza's empire is terrified of crossing him. Additionally, unlike Frieza, Varax isn't intimidated by Beerus and is powerful enough to openly challenge the Gods of Destruction.
• Warlord Kroz from Tech 10 Rebooted is a Noble Demon variety of this, having conquered around 72 planets on his quest to find a Worthy Opponent, but simply leaving them alone afterwards.
• In The Shape of the Nightmare to Come and The Age of Dusk, Abaddon finally manages to take over all of Segmentum Obscurus.
• In Zim the Warlord: Irken Reversion, Zim and all the other Irkens who go through the Reversion are granted by the Tallest the previously defunct title of Warlord. This appears to be basically an expansion on being an Invader, as in addition to the initially-assigned planets they're sent to take over, they're given permission to spread their conquests and carve out their own domains, which are autonomous but still subservient to the overall Irken Empire.
• There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton: Multiple characters and factions are this or wish to be it, most notably the Gem Empire, which has 100% control of every solar system in their home dwarf galaxy, as well as presences in multiple other galaxies, namely Andromeda, which their galaxy orbits, and the Milky Way, along with other members of the Local Group. The only reason they haven't conquered the universe yet is that the Diamonds like to take their time extracting all available resources from a system before moving on, and since they're effectively immortal they're not exactly rushing.
• In Fall of Starfleet, Rebirth of Friendship: Grand Ruler Celesto emerged from the stars and, despite presenting himself and his Unicornicopians as heroes, essentially conquered Equestria and forced it to submit to his rule. He enforces Fantastic Racism in the Unicornicopians against the species they've conquered, and as it turns out, used mind control to make himself so beloved and cripple Equestria's defenders in favor of his champions, Starfleet. It's later revealed that he rules numerous other planets, with the Elk among the only free peoples left. However, he'll blow up planets on a whim for the sake of his ideal "story", yet another reason why he is not an especially competent example, as most of the population is considering a revolt by the time the story starts, and he is almost totally unable to defend himself against both the heroes and Dark Conquest.
• In The Calvinverse, the ruler of Zok, Rupert Chill, takes this role. Having fled from the Chill Collective out of refusal to share power, he has conquered much of the universe, and recently attempted to conquer Earth. However, Calvin managed to thwart his efforts, causing Rupert to get tunnel vision and devote all his efforts towards Earth, and later just Calvin as he goes more and more insane. As a result, many of his planets manage to rise up and free themselves in Double Trouble.

Films — Animation

• BoBoiBoy: The Movie: Klamkabot tells the heroes that the Tengkotak gang have a planetary invasion campaign occurring in the far reaches of the galaxy with a hologram of several ships blasting at a defenseless planet. If they get the teleportation power, their conquest would be even faster.

Films — Live-Action

• Sheev Palpatine from Star Wars is the consummate example of this trope, though he did it through pure manipulation rather than outright force. He got voted into absolute power, after masterminding a civil war after a millennium of peace (in which he was secretly the leader of both sides), resulting in him receiving popular support for his authoritarian reforms. By the time he declared himself Emperor, he already had absolute control of the Republic...or, as he declared it, the first! Galactic! EMPIRE!
  Padmé Amidala: So this is how liberty dies: with thunderous applause...

While he took over the vast majority of his territory through manipulation, the EU and various bits of the films do show that the Galactic Empire also annexed new planets via military force.

• Ming the Merciless from the Flash Gordon film is referred to as the Emperor of the Universe and the Galaxy. The fact that he can casually cause moons to collide with planets and rain down "natural" disasters on every solar system when he wants to test them definitely places him on the level of Galactic Conqueror. However, he only exercises direct control over his homeworld and it's moons.
• The Lord Marshal, leader of the Necromongers from the Riddick franchise. They're basically space-faring Knight Templar crusaders led by a "holy-half dead" leader who move from planet to planet, converting anyone they can find and killing anyone who refuses.
• The Beast in Krull.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Thanos - while he usually has others do the grunt-work for him, he is widely regarded as the most powerful being in the universe, and commands at least one army of killer cyborgs and a retinue of elite warriors. His ultimate goal is to assemble the six Infinity Stones and use their power to wipe out half of all sapient life as a twisted form of Population Control.
  • Thor: Ragnarok revealed that Odin, of all people used to be this, before changing their ways. Hela even noted how she used to be their favored tool of conquest, and lamented that such glorious days were long gone.
• DC Extended Universe:
  • In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Bruce Wayne dreams of a Bad Future in which the Earth has been conquered and become a wasteland. A gigantic Omega symbol has been carved in said wasteland — the symbol of Darkseid.
  • Justice League: While Darkseid himself doesn't show up, one of his generals, Steppenwolf, serves as the Big Bad trying to conquer Earth. He tried this once before thousands of years ago, but was repelled by an alliance of Earth's gods, the Amazons, Atlantis, and at least one Green Lantern.
  • Zack Snyder's Justice League: Darkseid spearheads the conquest attempt in the distant past in this version (he was replaced by Steppenwolf in the above theatrical cut) and fails. He resented that failure and came to "turn 100,000 worlds to dust" out of spite for this. At the end of the film, he plans a new invasion of Earth (which succeeds in a Bad Future Alternate Timeline) in search of the Anti-Life Equation.

Literature

• Isaac Asimov's The Foundation Trilogy:
  • "The General (Foundation)": The title character, General Bel Riose, is completely loyal to the Galactic Empire. However, he was born during the Empire's collapse, which means many of the systems at the Milky Way's periphery have regressed into barbarism and merely chemically-based energy sources. He leads an army to conquer these barbarians worlds, attempting to bring them once more under the control of the Empire. He is, however, too successful at conquering foreign lands, and the Emperor recalls him once he gets to the inner worlds of the Foundation.
  • "The Mule": The Warlord of Kalgan has been terrorizing the local planets, until he meets the Mule, a mutant with Psychic Powers who defeats him and takes his territory. From there, the Mule leads an ever-growing fleet of mercenaries and soldiers against the Foundation, even capturing Terminus, the capital planet, during the 300th anniversary of colonization. By the end of the story, he's conquered every First Foundation planet and not even the Second Foundation appears to be strong enough to stop him.
• Dune: Paul Atreides brought his dynasty to supreme power by threatening to destroy the all-important Spice.

• Thursday Next: Emperor Zhark regularly destroys and enslaves whole worlds. In person he's a pretty nice guy, though he does tend to overreact a bit, like responding to a shoot out in a Western book by deploying Space Marines.
• Togetherly Long: The evil Emperor Von Mal, who's already conquered close to a million planets by the time the story starts.
• Harry Turtledove’s "Trantor Falls": Gilmer wants to be the first warlord to take Trantor and exploit its riches, yet he's aware that others will try to attack him while he's weak, and must begin fortifying the defenses that he's just destroyed.

Live-Action TV

• Babylon 5: Defined by their conflict is good outlook, the "Shadows" would stoke war between the younger races, let it rage for a while until enough races and individuals had been killed off as to leave the strongest surviving, then they would hibernate until needed again. They were very clear in their intentions when they tried to woo Sheridan. It is likely, however, that the Shadows don't want a decisive victory. They believe conflict is at the heart of all growth. If they win decisively they reduce the amount of conflict. The Vorlons are their historic rival. Both sides admit to a degree of validity. They both think the other side helps their own philosophy. Life under the Shadows or the Vorlons would have been equally unacceptable. That’s why Sheridan turned his back on each of the Elder Races.
  Morden: It's like knocking over an anthill. Every new generation gets stronger. The anthill gets redesigned, made better.
  Sheridan: So that's what the Shadows do. Come out every few thousand years, and kick over all "the anthills." Start wars, destroy entire races.
• The Chouseishin Series has had one in each installment.
  • Chouseishin Gransazer: This turns out to be the secret goal of Belzeus and the reason he tricked the Cosmic Alliance into invading Earth, as the planet is a key strategic point that will give him a foothold in conquering the universe if he takes it over.
  • Genseishin Justiriser: Kaiser Hades has galactic conquest as his eventual goal. His bigger brother is much closer to achieving it than him, as his galactic empire is stated to control most of the galaxy.
  • Chousei Kantai Sazer X: After the Descal took over Earth, their Neo Descal descendants moved on to other planets, conquering them by covering them in darkness and forcing their inhabitants into Blind Obedience. The Neo Descal being too big for the fledgling resistance to take on is why they opt to travel back in time and stop the Descal from taking over Earth in the first place.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Master in the classic series, whenever he/she wasn't trying to kill or corrupt their lifelong rival, the Doctor. In the revived series, the John Simm Master planned to establish a "New Time Lord Empire" in his first appearance, taking over Earth and building a fleet of warships during "the year that never was". The Doctor, Martha and Jack stopped him before he could launch his first attack.
  • If Daleks are space Nazis, Davros is pretty much Karl Brandt with a bit of space Hitler. Terry Molloy has this tendency to crescendo every single line of dialogue into very loud shouting. The writers have also described him as a brilliant scientist, and the Doctor and Davros debating is always a highlight. He created the Daleks out of frustration at his disability and the thirst for power that it gave him. Davros has survived being shot by his own creation, being blown up in a bunker, blown up in a spaceship, cryogenically frozen, left drifting in a void for 90 years in outer space, etc. It reminds one of Anthony Ainley getting incinerated in "Planet of Fire" and then randomly showing up again in "Trial of a Time Lord." "How did you survive?" "Hueh hueh hueh... you think such a trifling inconvenience would destroy me?" (Thanks, Pip and Jane.)
• The Peacekeepers and Scarrans on Farscape. Peacekeepers are enhanced humanoids who favor military strength. The design of the Scarrans is reptilian, and some of them look pretty freaky. Given the Scarrans' diversity, it's hard to give any one character preference over the others. The design of the ruling caste is more human-looking, with pimpin' red armor. The lower class, 'horse-faced' Scarrans appear brutish, like a two-story building. The half-Scarran character, Scorpius, is motivated by revenge—for his very existence, oddly enough. He was willing to enlist in the Peacekeepers to fight the Scarrans, not for political or moral reasons, but because of how they abused him as a child. When he discovers John's wormhole knowledge, he realizes it can be weaponized and used to wipe out the Scarrans completely. He believes this is the only way to win the arms race and save the Peacekeepers as a species. There is no known cause behind the long war between Scarrans and Peacekeepers. In-storyline, it's as simple as cold-blooded vs. warm-blooded; We die in the heat vs. We thrive in the heat.
• Dark Specter from Power Rangers in Space. He is also a Dimension Lord, and so badass that it takes a planet-destroying missile and more to take him down.
• Stargate SG-1:
  • The Goa'uld as a whole already control most of the Milky Way Galaxy, but the most ambitious Goa'uld System Lords usually try to conquer all of the galaxy by absorbing the territories of their rivals, assuming the Big Bad mantle in the process. Successively, Apophis, Anubis, and Ba'al came the closest to actually succeeding.
  • As well as the Ori, who have already conquered one galaxy. They're ascended Energy Beings who rule through a Religion of Evil called Origin, and build an armada to embark on a crusade to convert the Milky Way.
• Stargate Atlantis:
  • The Wraith in the Pegasus Galaxy, although they don't so much rule as they do feed. Also, the Wraith do a lot of fighting amongst themselves, on account of there not being enough food to go around. Thus, no one person (or hive queen) actually controls their galaxy.
  • The former Wraith named "Michael" became such a threat in his own right in the later seasons. After he started his Hybrid project he started lusting after power for its own sake. His end goal became to supplant both humans and Wraith with his Hybrid minions by annihilating everything else.
• Star Trek:
  • Pretty much any villain race at some point has aspirations of galactic conquests. But as far as individuals in the series go, the Borg Queen is the best example.
  • The Female Founder in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is an unusually low-key version of this trope, being much more serene and no-nonsense than the usual bombastic examples. Her people's Control Freak tendencies led them to create the Dominion, a massive empire covering a quarter of the galaxy, and are looking to expand into the Alpha Quadrant through both subterfuge and military might.
• His Divine Shadow in Lexx.
• Super Sentai has a few:
  • The Great Star League Gozma in Dengeki Sentai Changeman are the first in the franchise. They not only conquer planets, they force the champions of each world to serve in their military.
  • The Reconstructive Experiment Empire Mess of Choushinsei Flashman invade planets for the purpose of collecting genetic materials from them, which they then use to create new Beast Warriors for future conquests.
  • The Silver Imperial Army Zone in Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman have decimated at least 999 planets across the universe, though they're far more interested in killing everyone on them rather than conquering them, as they need to sacrifice 1000 planets for a ritual to give their ruler immortality.
  • The Universal Annihilation Army Warstar, the first villain faction in Tensou Sentai Goseiger, are alien invaders who conquered multiple planets before coming to Earth.
  • Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger has Emperor Ackdos Gill, ruler of the universe-spanning Zangyack Empire, with Earth being one of the few planets they haven't conquered yet.
  • Don Armage, the ruler of the Space Shogunate Jark Matter in Uchu Sentai Kyuranger, who has conquered pretty much the entire galaxy, including earth,.
• The Ultra Series tends to feature these as monsters of the week, but given how these shows work they never make it past Earth. There have also been a few have been major Big Bads who came close to this, one example being Alien Empera from Ultraman Mebius. He even managed to conquer the M78 Nebula that the Ultras hail from for a time.

Music

• Gloryhammer's second album, Space 1992 Rise Of The Chaos Wizards, is set 1000 years after the first album, in which Angus McFife and company defeat the evil wizard Zargothrax and imprison him; now the chaos wizards release him, and he attempts to go conquer the galaxy. This ends in the destruction of Earth in order to prevent an Eldritch Abomination being released.

Myths & Religion

• In Scientology, Xenu conquered many worlds and dropped his excess population into Earth's volcanos, leading to many of the evils that plague mankind.

Tabletop Games

• Traveller:
  • Cleon I, founder of the Third Imperium. In something of a subversion, he not only succeeds, but his empire is actually a more-or-less nice one once it is created - whatever one can say of how he created it. Cleon was a skillful politician, businessman, and diplomat. He knew when to entice, when to bludgeon, and how to weave together multitudinous plans, and in general he was a very Magnificent Bastard.
  • Albadawi might count. He was a Four-Star Badass who pretty much won the Interstellar Wars himself. In his case he was acting as a servant of the Terran Confederation rather than for his own ambition.
• Warhammer 40,000 has more than its fair share of these, some evil... some really evil. (See page quote.)
  • The most successful was undoubtedly the Emperor of Man, the founder, and later god of the Imperium, the setting's "good" guys. The Imperium had been at its most reasonable and expanded most rapidly under his direct rule, growing from the solar system to spanning most of the galaxy in just a few short centuries (in spite of their life extending technologies, the Emperor was already immortally youthful, purportedly 38,000 years old when he founded the Imperium). It was also secular, reasonably tolerant of mutants and nonhostile aliens, and presumably had reasonably efficient governance. The the Horus Heresy happened and the Emperor was interred into the Golden Throne to survive and lost most of his ability to communicate; he more or less became a figurehead and his Imperium steadily became a psychotic, dystopian, totalitarian, theocratic empire. The Imperium never fully recovered after that, while it still makes some gains in territory and technology from time to time, it sits somewhere between stagnant and failing by inches. Between most of its resources being sucked up by wars on all sides, including the occasional civil war between parts of it and the occasional galactic crisis, the Imperium, and humanity's last hope (such as it is), tottering on between a lasting victory and permanent collapse has been a lasting theme of 40K.
  • The other "good guys" of 40k, the Tau Empire, also have this as a goal, believing it to be a part of their manifest destiny. Though they have a long, long way to go. They currently sit have a tiny, yet densely packed empire on the opposite side of the galaxy, preferring to use diplomatic, economic, and political means to bring other species into their empire, including Human-held worlds left behind or left to their own devices. However, depending on who you listen to, they might be the optimistic, hopeful beacon of reason and tolerance they present themselves as, or they might be an Orwellian, authoritarian society ruled by a caste of scheming, charismatic masterminds given a bright coat of paint. A recurring theme is that the Tau are naive and overly eager to extend a hand of friendship, sometimes to their own peril. However, most of the other races are more interested in some combination of killing, raping, torturing, or just eating everyone. Black-and-Gray Morality indeed.
  • Not to mention Abaddon the Despoiler, Warmaster of Chaos. The foremost of Chaos Lords, and blessed by all the Chaos Gods. He is recognized by the Imperium as an existential threat, and they devote a great deal of resources and manpower to keeping him and the rest of the hordes of Chaos contained to the Eye of Terror. He led thirteen Black Crusades which broke out including his 12th to the Gothic Sector against the Imperium. He'll show up to harass the Imperium once in a while, and every now and then he'll launch a Black Crusade to collect superweapons and to weaken and undermine the Imperium around the Eye as part of the Long Game. (Fanon likes to think of these as repeated failures, though it wasn't until relatively recently that we learned about them in detail. And before that point, any permanent, meaningful victories against the Imperium was outside the bounds of allowed narrative.) Now, he's gathering up his weapons and unifying the forces of Chaos at a level unprecedented for nearly 10 millennia for the 13th Black Crusade to make an assault on Terra after all this time, to finally succeed in what Horus didn't.
    • That said, Chaos itself hopes to engulf the galaxy, and would if their mortal followers ever succeed in bringing down the Emperor. Chaos is broken up into four major gods, each representing its own unique portfolio and domain, and possibly lesser gods of an unknown number. Hypothetically, they could take over realspace right now, but such is the nature of Chaos is that their energy and attention is mostly spent against one another in the Great Game, a war that, by definition, is destined to never end.
  • The Craftworld Eldar dream of retaking their former place as the masters of the galaxy. The more realistic ones know that the odds of them ever doing so are almost zero, but keep fighting anyway since it beats laying down and accepting extinction (and since the status quo on their craftworlds and colonised planets is nice enough to be worth defending).
  • Surprisingly averted with the Dark Eldar, the most vicious and sadistic of the factions (which is saying something) and the only Eldar faction who has managed to thrive, who don't want to bother with conquering the galaxy. Yes, they do make regular raids into realspace for food and slaves (often one and the same), and will occasionally make a grab for resources or territory. But they don't bother since being in realspace for an extended period is a hazard for them: the Chaos God Slaanesh is constantly "sipping" out their souls, the effect is strongest in realspace, and dying out there carries the most risk against revivification should they fall in battle. That aside, they're having too much fun or too occupied in their home city of Commorragh, where murder and intrigue is rife and the kabals (something between a noble house and a pirate syndicate) are too busy competing to undermine or exterminate one another. The other subgroups of the Dark Eldar, Haemonculus covens, wych cults, Hellion gangs, and the Incubus shrines typically lack the resources to go out into realspace and attach themselves to kabal raids as mercenary cohorts.

Video Games

• EXTRAPOWER: Series Big Bad Dark Force has this ambition. In backstory, he has already conquered numerous planets. The Shakun Star falls during the course of Star Resistance, and his eyes are set for Earth next in Attack of Darkforce.
• The Zerg Overmind from StarCraft wants to assimilate all life in the universe into the Zerg Swarm. Later succeeded by his Dragon Kerrigan, who is — by her own words — "pretty much the queen bitch of the universe". StarCraft II has The Dark Voice Amon, the true master mind who programmed the Overmind to attack the Xel Naga, and lead the Zerg into assimilating the Protoss to create Zerg/Protoss Hybrids. His grand scheme is to wipe out all life in the galaxy so he and his Hybrids will rule it. Legacy of the Void brings the latter to the foreground and places the spotlight on the Aiur Protoss as they seek new allies to deal with the existential crisis unfolding.
• Emperor Percival Tachyon, from Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction has managed to bring most of the Polaris Galaxy under his sway.
• Mother series:
  • Giygas was this in EarthBound Beginnings, before he became an Eldritch Abomination in EarthBound (1994).
  • In the fan midquel MOTHER: Cognitive Dissonance, Giegue tries to continue this path by finding the Apple of Enlightenment to see his future.
• Bowser aspires to be a universe conqueror in Super Mario Galaxy. He fails. He tries to do it again in Super Mario Galaxy 2. Guess what happens next. Before the Galaxy games, he planned to use the power of the Star Children to take over the universe in Yoshi's Island DS.
• Knights of the Old Republic has both Darth Revan in the Back Story of the game and Darth Malak as the current Big Bad. In The Dark Side ending, the Player Character becomes one.
• Freedom Force has Lord Dominion.
• Civilization In Space! games like Master of Orion usually have this as an option for winning the game.
• In Freedom Planet, by the time Lord Arktivus Brevon makes his way to Planet Avalice, he's already conquered a large swath of the galaxy. Taking the Kingdom Stone hidden on Avalice would allow him to continue his conquest unopposed.
• Sargeras the Fallen Titan from the Warcraft universe, whose goal is to lead the Burning Legion to destroy the entire universe.
• Mass Effect:
  • The Reapers are an interesting variation of this. In a way, they already control the galaxy, since they use it as a gigantic corral for raising intelligent species and then wiping them out/harvesting them every 50,000 years. The Reapers maintain an entire network of self-repairing hyperspace jumpgates and a gargantuan space station at its center for the sake of creating new civilizations that are advanced enough to be worth conquering but reliant enough on Lost Technology that the Reapers' more advanced tech makes it nigh impossible for whatever current civilization exists to oppose them.
  • Javik is a Well-Intentioned Extremist, mundane version of this. The plan was to get a million protheans to survive the Reaper Harvest by hiding in stasis, then force the primitive races into servitude against the Reapers. Unfortunately, sabotage ensured that only Javik survived.
• The Gravemind and its Flood forces in Halo. According to its words, the Flood had already conquered galaxies-worth "of flesh and bones" and now were planning on conquering the Milky Way. Despite the courage and highly advanced technology of the Forerunners, the Flood could only be slowed down, until the former made the decision to to sacrifice themselves and all non-indexed sentient life in a effort to starve them to death. 100,000 years later, the Gravemind (being effectively immortal) is finally reformed but was again defeated, this time by humanity and the Arbiter-affiliated Elites, who put aside their differences and use the Ark and the replacement Halo 04 to lure in and destroy the Gravemind and all the Flood it could muster before the infection became too big to stop. However, given that there are still a lot of Flood in storage on various Forerunner research facilities, the Gravemind is likely not finished yet.
• BIOS from Forgotten Worlds, who has created gods to serve as his enforcers as he travels the galaxy, conquering and reducing worlds into barren wastelands.
• The Grandmaster from Strider and its sequel (as well as the 2014 game), who couples it with his desire to create new lifeforms at will to become a new god.
• Genocide/Scumocide from Captain Commando has already established a Criminal Syndicate of bio-engineered super criminals that has taken over the entire galaxy by the time the game kicks in.
• One boss in Visions & Voices is called the "Minor Galactivore." This guy is not even close to being the final boss.
• WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$: Orbulon tries to be this during his chapter. He really sucks at it, and ends up crash-landing on Diamond City. As seen in later games, he has stopped trying to conquer anything ever since.
• Kirby:
  • In the first two games of the Dark Matter trilogy, Dark Matter threatens to take over, respectively, Dream Land and all of Pop Star. By Kirby 64, it threatens Pop Star and all of the nearby planets.
  • In Kirby's Return to Dream Land, Magolor aspires to be one after he gets his hands on a powerful artifact. The problem with that, however, is that said artifact, the Master Crown, is a sentient and corrupting Artifact of Doom. While it would've allowed Magolor to take over the universe at first, eventually its power would've mutated him into something much worse.
• Metroid:
  • Mother Brain's ultimate goal is to "bring order to the universe" by taking it over, using the Space Pirates as her army and the Metroids as her weapons.
  • The Metroid Prime Trilogy has Dark Samus, who finally settles on trying to become this after taking control of the Space Pirates and having them treat her as a goddess, using the planet Phaaze, the source of all Phazon, to infect all the planets in the galaxy with it to either kill the inhabitants or turn them into corrupted monsters under her control.
  • Metroid Prime: Hunters has Gorea, which devastated the Alimbic civilization and nearly took over the Tetra Galaxy before the Alimbics sealed it away.
  • Metroid Dread has Raven Beak, leader of the Mawkin tribe of the Chozo. He once planned to use the Metroids of SR-388 to conquer the galaxy, and he lured Samus Aran to ZDR in order to harvest the Metroid DNA in her to clone a new army of Metroids.
• From Battleborn is Lothar Rendain, leader of the Jennerit Imperium who has decided to ally with the Varelsi and aid them in their destruction of the universe on the promise that he and those who follow him would be spared from the universal end and be granted "ascension" to "the passage" to "the other side".
• Mental from the Serious Sam counts as one of these, even though we never even see his face nor do we actually fight him. What we do know about him is that he commands a great and terrible army of aliens, robots, cyborgs, interdimensional horrors, and other monsters. There is very little we know about what his goals are apart from causing untold havoc and ruin, but he is still the most dominant power in the galaxy.
• Queen Victoria in Sunless Skies. Yes, that one. She holds full dominion over the star system Albion (Fallen London Recycled In Space) and contested control of The Reach (a star system made of jungles in space). Her power (and restored youth) comes from an artificial Clockwork Sun, who has the power to rewrite the laws of time.^note Naturally, the Clockwork Sun is a sentient brat who made the mistake of lobotomizing all her mechanics and engineers, so the empress' power may not last as eternally as expected.
• Sunrider has Veniczar Arcadius, the masked dictator of the galactic superpower PACT. He already controls a good chunk of the galaxy in this capacity and is keen on taking over the rest, steamrolling the independent worlds of the Neutral Rim with his overwhelming military might. Revealed to actually be a female example later on, as she is a Hive Mind posing as the real Arcadius who died long ago.
• In Stellaris, this can be a goal for many an interstellar empire. However, in terms of characterization, the Great Khan of Apocalypse most clearly qualifies. They are a visionary leader who unites first the squabbling marauder tribes, and then attempts to turn the rest of the galaxy into satrapies. How well this goes varies; sometimes they succeed (until their inevitable demise undoes most of their work), and sometimes they pick a fight with a Fallen Empire well before they stand a chance of not being wiped out.
• Lord Vraxx from Brawlhalla used to be a despotic tyrant who conquered entire solar systems and frequently destroyed planets for the pettiest of things. After his entire fleet was destroyed with him among them he ended up in Valhalla where, when he's not competing in the tournament, he's making plans to take over Valhalla for himself.
• Galaxy Angel has Prince Eonia Transbaal, who after being exiled from the empire returned five years later with a seemingly endless fleet and took over the empire by force (by killing the entire royal family, including his own father) and openly intends to use Lost Technology to expand the empire by subjugating other worlds to his rule. After he's defeated, in the sequel the heroes have to face the Valfask, a race of aliens who come from a different dimension and whose only purpose seems to conquer other races by virtue of considering themselves superior to everyone else.

Web Comics

• Fructose Riboflavin in The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! very badly wants to be this, and has been trying to overthrow the Nemesite government for hundreds of years, and he just can't do it...
• General Zarro from The Fan is very likely to be this. At the very least, he's got a pretty big flagship, and is powerful enough to dent the fourth wall just by removing his mask.
• In Commander Kitty, Zenith has aspirations of being one of these.
• Lord Boros of One-Punch Man, a parody of Freeza. He's the first enemy to actually survive a direct hit from Saitama, forcing the latter to use a "serious" punch.
• League of Super Redundant Heroes has Kurgh the Conqueror, who was this trope. He goes by Mayor Kurgh nowadays.
• Ava's Demon:
  • Wrathia Bellarmina was the queen of an intergalactic empire alongside her husband Pedri, leading many planets and commanding mighty warriors, until...
  • Titan appeared out of nowhere, conquered Wrathia's empire overnight, established a Path of Inspiration with himself as a god, and started expanding his holdings by buying out planets wholesale. The nature of Titan's powers and the resistance against him are driving mysteries in the story.

Web Videos

• World's Greatest Adventures’s Warlord Cassius is one, albeit not a particularly powerful one. The dictator of the Tharsis Quadrangle on the Planet Mars, he intends to take over the Planet Earth, and then, the universe. (Fortunately, he is Lawful Evil, and will not take over Earth until he has bested its champion in a square fight. Less fortunately, his designated champion of Earth is Rufus.)

Western Animation

• Vilgax in the Ben 10 franchise, who carries the title "conqueror of ten worlds." Other villains from the series fit the bill too, such as the Incursean Empire and Aggregor.
• In Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Emperor Zurg successfully conquered the galaxy on several occasions (usually by forcing the Galactic Alliance to surrender to his will, rather than by more "direct" means), but was never able to make it stick for more than an episode or two, thanks primarily to Buzz's interference.
  "CURSE YOU, BUZZ LIGHTYEAR!"
• Cy-Kill from Challenge of the GoBots. He's mostly concerned with conquering his homeworld, but he'll conquer Earth as a useful stepping stone toward that goal, and he'll gladly conquer other planets once that's done.
• The DC Animated Universe covers many different generations of heroes, across different decades (even centuries) and facing varied and divergent foes, but none can compare to the ultimate Big Bad, whose mere presence is enough to cow raging mobs of bloodthirsty beasts. There is a reason it is his quotation that is the lead-in to the Evil Overlord page.
  "People of Earth, I am Darkseid, Lord of Apokolips! Here is your savior, cowed and broken. I have crushed him as easily as I have crushed all who have dared to oppose me throughout the Cosmos. I am power unlike any you have ever known: absolute, infinite, and unrelenting. You have no choice but to prepare as a long dark future as my subjects and my slaves."

  — Darkseid, Superman: The Animated Series — Apokolips Now Part 2

However, the people of Earth opposed him, especially Dan Turpin. Of course, Darkseid did not take kindly to this.

• Dexter's Laboratory, specifically the Dial M for Monkey segment featured the titular hero fighting against a space fleet about to invade the planet, led by the mysterious Simion. In a twist, Simion is revealed to be from Earth as well, having been a chimp sent into space who was mutated by cosmic radiation. Seeking vengeance on the humans who abandoned him, he offers Monkey the chance to join him in his revenge on Earth and conquest of the galaxy, but ultimately pulls a Heel–Face Turn after Monkey shows him kindness.
• Lord Krulos of Dino-Riders wants nothing better than to return to his star-spanning empire in the future.
• Lord Kallous The Merciless from Elliott from Earth used to be this. At least before his home planet was destroyed, reducing him to a grade school teacher at the hive, longing for his Evil Overlord days.
• On The Fairly OddParents!, both Dark Laser and Princess Mandie scheme to conquer the galaxy. Though, in Dark Laser's case, he seems content to blow up the Earth.
• The Irken Invaders of Invader Zim are a whole caste of Galactic Conquerors who are capable of conquering entire planets single-handedly with proper equipment. The main character is a former Invader who lost his rank after destroying his home planet with a Humongous Mecha and halting the first galactic invasion of his people.
  Greeting Robot: Galactic conquest is here! Galactic conquest is here! Galactic conquest...
• Kid Cosmic showcases many aspiring aliens of this type, most of them seeking the Cosmic Stones of Power.
• Lord Dragaunus from Mighty Ducks: The Animated Series aspires to restore the former glory of the Saurian Overlords, yet is held back by his and his minions' current stranding on Earth.
• My Life as a Teenage Robot has The Cluster, a race of Mechanical Lifeforms ruled by Queen Vexus.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998) episode "Forced Kin" features an unnamed Alien Leader, an Expy of Galactus, arriving from space to conquer the earth. He proves to be one of the girls toughest foes, capable of predicting and countering their every move. He actually succeeds in defeating them, and had Townsville at his mercy. Of course, Mojo Jojo won’t stand for this.
• Daemon from ReBoot is a supervirus who can bring entire systems under her control simply by entering them. By the time she actually appears, she has overtaken most of the Net.

• Aku of Samurai Jack has not only conquered Earth, but the galaxy at large, which is why the Bad Future he rules over is filled with aliens.
• Horde Prime from She-Ra: Princess of Power; somewhat unusual in that he has in fact already conquered the galaxy in question. Horde Prime in the Reboot has already conquered multiple galaxies, and the only reason the planet Etheria escaped his grasp is because it was moved to a Pocket Dimension before he reached it.
• Most of Space Ghost’s foes were either this or Space Pirates. Most of them were one shots, but some notable ones included Metallus and his robotic space fleet, and Zorak and his identical Insectoid Alien minions.
• The Homeworld Gems of Steven Universe have already conquered vast swaths of planets across multiple galaxies, and utilize them for resources and to produce new Gems. Earth was almost conquered, but The Crystal Gems, a group of rebel Gems who believe all life is precious, halted the invasion. And by the end of the series, Steven gets Homeworld to do a Heel–Race Turn.
• The Skeleton King of Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! initially seems to be this, though later becomes more of an Omnicidal Maniac as the series progresses.
• Krang is stated to be this in his home of Dimension X from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987), as he is in most other versions of the franchise.
• Wander over Yonder:
  • Wander's most-frequent nemesis is Lord Hater, planetary conqueror and self-proclaimed "greatest in the galaxy".
  • "The Greater Hater" introduces Lord Dominator, a villain who seems to out-match Hater on every level (a bigger ship, better weapons, and an army of ruthless Mecha-Mooks instead of the bungling Watchdogs). Lord Dominator becomes the main villain of season 2, and she almost succeeds in conquering the entire galaxy because of sheer competence.
  • The galaxy is actually full of these, all competing to get the highest ranking on "Galactic Villain Leaderboard". Such characters include Emperor Awesome, Sourdough the Evil Sandwich, The Black Cube of Darkness, Dr. Screwball Jones, and countless others. This even includes some fan characters.
• Possibly more dimensional conquerors, but some of the villains in W.I.T.C.H. fall under this. Nerissa, the Big Bad of season two, is plotting to take over as many dimensions as she can to rule them and create a utopia, while Phobos has plans of conquering Earth, Zamballa, and Kandrakar, among others.

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