This trope has been redefined here in the Trope Repair Shop
and here in YKKTW. It is now a medium-neutral supertrope, requires 15+ species, not including hybrids, and can't be an Informed Attribute. The old definition is now the video game subtrope Massive Race Selection.
Several examples didn't have enough information to tell if they are still valid — it isn't clear if 15+ races are actually described/shown in the work. If anyone is familiar with one of the following, please help. If you know one isn't valid, please drop a note here. If you know one is valid, please put it back on the page, and restore the corresponding trope example on that work's page.
- In BIBLE, the appearance of Loads And Loads Of Races is justified since both afterlives take souls from every mortal race in the universe.
- Although Dominic Deegan started off with mainly human characters, in the recent "vacation arc" they started adding a crapload more.
- On Enor, the Earth-like planet in the Worldbuilding project of the same name, and on Ymir, there are the Manii, Kalur, Ken'y, Irks, Pards, Orpacurce, Merks, Noruej, and Ymirians among a handful of other races.
- Despite the fact that Flash Gordon takes place on only one planet for most of its run, that planet, Mongo is incredibly diverse.
- Robert Reed's The Great Ship series has thousands of unique Starfish Aliens on board the massive, Jupiter-sized starship.
- In Have Space Suit – Will Travel by Robert Heinlein, the Three Galaxies government covers the Milky Way and the Greater and Lesser Magellanic Clouds. It has at least 1728 member races, and almost certainly many more than that.
- Larry Niven's Known Space series has Humans, Kzinti, Puppeteers, Outsiders, Pierin, Kdatlyno, Trinocs, Bandersnatchi, Grogs and more. Those are only the contemporary races, the Thrint, Tnuctipun, Pak, Martians and others have gone (mostly) extinct. And then there are all the myriad humanoid subspecies on Ringworld...
- Last Res0rt, like most Furry Comics, revels in this. It's an interplanetary event set on supposedly neutral ground, and has Loads And Loads Of Characters. For example, this page has (in order of appearance) Anyr, Talmi, Aeodah, Rejika, Aquivon, Vidian, Kendril, Jespa, Zillan, Tzepar, and Human... well, a human Djinn, at least), and even includes a catch all "Wanderer" race for species from worlds outside of the Connection!
- The Lensman series has lots and lots of kinds of aliens.
- Mahou Sensei Negima has 4 basic races: Humans, Youkai, Hellas race(dark skinned) and Animal People from the Magic World. The human races are then subdivided in many different kinds and varying in all points of the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism.
- The Malazan Book Of The Fallen has dozens of races, each with multiple named characters.
- Masters Of The Universe features quite a number of sapient species: humans, bee-men, bird-men, mer-men, skunk-men, spider-men, any number of indescribable things (like Orko and Modulok)... and then there's all the various kinds of robot and cyborg.
- The Myth Adventures series has mentioned dozens of races by name, and the existence of thousands more is implied by the diversity of its minor characters and background crowds.
- The Hindu Mythology canon has tons of sapient races, as one might expect of the world's oldest religion that is still practiced today. The list includes the vanara, garuda, naga, rakshasa, the saptas, pitrs, the gods themselves and their avatars. And those are just the most popular ones — there are literally hundreds of different beings in the Ramayana alone.
- Japanese Mythology has dozens of races, most of them spirits, animal people, and sentient objects.
- Most species of animal exist as humanoid beings in Nexus Gate. Most cultures we have in real life are represented with fictional counterparts as well.
- In The Star Beast by Robert Heinlein, the Federation has so many intelligent races in it that one of their top diplomats can't keep track of how many there are.
- In The Stone God Awakes by Philip Jose Farmer, a future earth has a dozen or more sapient species descended from various mammals.
- Thundercats, in both incarnations, has more races than you'd think would fit on one planet. Various animal-people are only the beginning.
- In Ugly Americans, New York alone seems to be home to hundreds, if not thousands, of races. Many are introduced for a quick gag, only to be fleshed out with their own histories and customs later on.
- Jack L. Chalker's Well World series has a planet containing 1560 extremely diverse intelligent species — the planet itself is a sort of laboratory for a superintelligent species which used it to experiment with creating all different kinds of life. It is divided into thousands of hexagons, each having its own environment and even differing physics.
Malazan Book Of The Fallen has apparently been expanded and cleaned.
While I am glad that the trope picture is a Ben 10 one, I feel that I should mention that Big Chill is in his Ultimate state, which is not his natural form. Man, I feel like a douche after complaining about something like that, but whatever.
The trope is being redefined in the Trope Repair Shop. It will probably not have types anymore, but it may end up requiring a minimum number of races, and/or some minimum description/art/screentime for each race.
There's a vote going on right now to decide these things, if you are interested. You can find the vote at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1325658396002427600 or at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/PageAction/LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces2
The proposed new description is posted and being discussed on YKTTW, here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=0qxl0jb94yym7vkhkln2jmen
Update: Changes have been made. Yes, Orion's Arm still counts.
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
VideoGame.Dominions 3 has been moved to the new game subtrope Massive Race Selection. I don't know whether the other Dominions (board?) game uses either trope.
Edited by ArcadesSabboth Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
Edit: Nevermind
Edited by 176.205.147.74 For we shall slay evil with logic...