
In fiction (and in Real Life) during a great war, there's a certain strategic loss that is very significant to the point of being demoralizing, shocking, and iconic in universe.
As an example: The Federation is fighting an intergalactic war against Scary Dogmatic Aliens, but there's one place in the galaxy that has no chance in hell of ever falling at the hands of the enemy: A planet-sized starship that's armed with weapons of mass destruction, fortified by thousands of automated defenses, an armada of the most powerful warships ever built, guarded by countless space fighters, mechanized infantry, and genetically bred elite warriors, all commanded by the most brilliant military genius in the galaxy and his handpicked staff.
Said planet-ship falls anyway, sending a horrible chill down the spines of the Federation. Sometimes it could be a turning point in the war, but not always: any faction could suffer a defeat like this and not necessarily be defeated. Perhaps this defeat was due to a surprise attack. Could have been a Pyrrhic Victory for the attackers. Sometimes it's described as a Noodle Incident in some stories. Whatever the reason, it's still an incredible loss, and no one will ever forget it. The defeat likewise can have terrible dramatic consequences because it sets a mentality for revanchism and trigger a factional fight among groups about who is responsible for the defeat and who do we scapegoat to make sure it doesn't happen again.
This is essentially The Worf Effect applied to an entire battle or war (or even a sport) instead of individuals, typically used to show how high the stakes are.
This trope usually overlaps with A Taste of Defeat, Curb-Stomp Battle, Defeating the Undefeatable, Hopeless War, Not So Invincible After All, Remember the Alamo!, and Last Stand. Often can be a Decisive Battle, if the balance of power is dramatically shifted as well. See also the sub-trope Capital Offensive. For the victors it could overlap with Pyrrhic Victory, and Was It Really Worth It?.
Examples
- Attack on Titan brings this to us early on, as a way of showing just how utterly fucked humanity is against the Titans. After the outer ring falls, the government drafts a whopping 250,000 citizens into a massive army to take the outer ring back. Granted, most if not all of these soldiers were barely-trained refugees, consisting of both the old and the young whose biggest strength was their numbers, but still, that's a quarter of a million people there, charging into the fray.... and barely a hundred make it back alive, with news that the operation failed utterly, and not even a single city was liberated from the Titans. It becomes apparent later that this was intended by the government, as a means of both relieving the inner walls of a refugee crisis and also breaking any notion that going outside the walls was even remotely survivable.
- The ending of the series becomes a shocking defeat legacy for the entire world; Eren, driven completely insane from both his powers and his overwhelming anger issues, tries to exterminate most of humanity to reduce the overall population and world capacity to a semi-subsistence existence so they cannot dredge the resources to enslave one another, or, failing that, eliminate all nations and ensure whoever kills him will achieve legendary status and unite the world through sheer cult of personality. Naturally, this plan utterly fails, and 80% of humanity and its nations are turned to ash before Eren is slain.
- The end of Code Geass season one sees the Black Rebellion on the verge of liberating Japan, only for it to be crushed thanks to Lelouch deserting at the worst possible time to go look for Nunnally. The result, as shown in season two, is Britannia imposing even harsher control over Japan.
- In spite of swiftly conquering Earth's standing militaries, the Muge Empire in Dancougar was faced with numerous resistance cells, with the most entrenched and well-supplied of them being in North and South America. The answer is made clear when the newly-defected Shapiro Keats informs the Empire of a massive weapons armory in Nazca, Peru, which housed an entire third of the world's remaining weapons and was the only such armory of its kind. The Empire immediately launches an all-out offensive to capture or destroy the armory, and in spite of Shinobu and Sara's best efforts, the Empire's forces succeed in the endeavor. In spite of the numerous small-scale victories that Dancougar scores in subsequent episodes, the armory's loss dooms the American resistance movement and by mid-series, the Dancougar team has to settle on just helping out in the other continents.
- The Red Ribbon Army in Dragon Ball was said to be the mightiest military force on the planet. No army in the world could defeat them and were on the cusp of world domination until they were thwarted by Goku and his motley crew of friends. Numerous bases were lost, countless soldiers and generals were killed, and The Dragon ends up killing the top commander of the army before being killed himself. Since then, the Army's legacy for the rest of the series is a bunch of revenge plots against Son Goku and the rest of the Dragon Team for their defeat, and responsible for creating one of the major villains of Z in the Androids and Cell.
- The Backstory of the Lyrical Nanoha multiverse describes the loss of the Belkan Empire's homeworld as this.
- In the later novels of Banner of the Stars, the fall of Lakfakalle, the Abh capital. Up until that point, the war had been pretty much going exclusively in the Abh's favor, and then their enemies turned the whole war around in a single, utterly disastrous surprise attack.
- In the manga TSUYOSHI, the title character specializes in inflicting them: he doesn't like to fight but his incredible strength means he's constantly challenged, so, to insure his opponents won't try again, he ruthlessly breaks fingers and limbs and hits their groins, often more than once to make sure they'll be too scared to try again. Teru, the reigning All Japan University Karate champion of all of Japan, is the first person introduced to have lost to him, and was left so traumatized by the experience he gave up on Karate and locked himself in his house watching idols and eating all the time, gaining a lot of weight in the process, and even when he gathers the courage to get out and practice Karate again he's still so terrified it interferes with his skills.
- In Asterix Alesia is treated as this, with the Gauls' wish to chase the Romans off their land ending with that battle and every single warrior that had been there being a Shell-Shocked Veteran. The fact that Vitalstatistix is a veteran of that battle and doesn't conceive of fighting the Romans beyond reminding them that his village will always resist—in spite of having access to a potion that grants Super-Strength—speaks volumes.
- In Transformers: Robots in Disguise, this is usually the title given to the Surge (the general term for the battle that drove the events of The Transformers: All Hail Megatron). It started out as a massive offensive push on all Autobot strongholds that killed many and drove them to the brink, ending with the Decepticons in control of Earth and carrying the Matrix. However, dissent in the ranks combined with a sudden Autobot rallying left Megatron critically injured and most of the leadership retreating to a nearby asteroid. It served as one for both sides. For the Autobots, it was a Pyrrhic Victory that left most of their former infrastructure in tatters, forcing most of them to relocate to Earth full-time. For the Decepticons, the repulsing of the Surge combined with Megatron being put offline for three years utterly destroyed them as a functioning military, and from that point on, they were never again able to assemble as a unified force. For the rest of the continuity, they existed mainly as various cells that number a few hundred at most and more often a dozen or so, often claiming to be the true successors.
- Harry and the Shipgirls has Blood Week, when the Abyssals started their first full all-out offensive on humanity, which left many coastal cities utterly devastated and with an uncountable amount of fatalities. Only the appearance of the Shipgirls repelled the Abyssals.
- The Negotiations-verse: The Battle of Jerusalem was this for the ponies and a Decisive Battle for humanity. The ponies initially thought the Conversion War would be a quick and easy victory for them, only for humanity collectively put their differences aside to unite against a common threat and put up a resistance fierce enough to keep the conflict at a stalemate for its first four years. In an attempt to demoralize the humans and sap them of their will to keep fighting, Celestia ordered the destruction of the Vatican, Mecca, and Jerusalem with the Crystal Cannon. The first two were successfully destroyed, but when the third was thwarted by Discord sabotaging the cannon, she decided to have the city be taken out in a traditional attack led by Luna. Luna and her forces went into the battle expecting it to be a straightforward affair - destroy a few monuments here and there, convert some of the enemy's forces, and receive a hero's welcome back in Equestria with humanity's spirits crushed and the rest of the war being a certain victory for the ponies. Instead, they're confronted with the Anti-Magic Thalmann Generators, which nullify all forms of magic around them. Since magic made up the majority of their defensive and offensive abilities, this caught the ponies off-guard as they had no idea how to counter against a weapon that turned their greatest advantage moot. Ultimately, the battle ended with humanity victorious, successfully killing Luna and driving the invasion back, which in turn served as the first major blow to the ponies' morale.
- In the Magical Girl Crisis Crossover Shattered Skies: The Morning Lights, the total massacre of the TSAB's Dimensional Navy, done singlehandedly by Unison Reinforce, lets everyone know that Dead End is not screwing around with the whole multiversal destruction thing, and they've damn well got the firepower to pull it off.
- A different weasel makes a difference
has several, both in the human conflict and in the Second Long Night.
- The Battle of Mud and Flame sees the Lannister forces devastated and Tywin left near dead. It marks the beginning of the end for the Lannister cause, right until their utter defeat at the Second Battle for King's Landing.
- The Reach is ultimately invaded by just about every other contender, so really nothing goes well for them, but the Field of Poison is the moment where they truly realize that they cannot defeat Euron without help.
- The Great Battle for the Wall. The Wall falls, and many of the defenders die. The psychological effects are also extreme, the Wall was 700 feet long and had stood for 8,000 years. The idea that it could fall never occurred to many people, and when it did, it was staggering.
- The Battle of Ronnel's Pass, also known as the Battle of Frozen Tears, is widely seen as the greatest defeat humanity suffered in the war. One of Daenerys dragons is killed, the defenders are routed, and the attempt to prevent the Others from reaching heavily populated areas of the Vale failed.
- Braavos actually suffers two. First they badly lose the Battles on the Shivering Sea, proving they are no longer the ultimate naval power. Then there's the Battle of the Titan, which is arguably closer to a draw. The Others are unable to take Braavos, but many defenders die and the Titan itself falls into the strait. Aside from the psychological impact, this means the Bravavosi can't leave their own harbor, effectively removing them from the war.
- Fortunately, the Others suffer a few catastrophic defeats as well, most notably at Winterfell and Bear Island.
- In The Weaver Option, during the Cybernetic Revolt Alpha Centauri was the last and most heavily defended of the Federation's manufacturing centers. The Battle of Alpha Centauri ended with the destruction of the guarding fleet and all in-system assets, which would serve as the death blow to the Federation. While the event has been largely forgotten by the 35th Millennium, the Emperor still remembers it bitterly due to the woman who was his only true peer dying in the battle, cementing his opinion that AI cannot be trusted.
- Independence Day: The film is essentially a series of shocking defeats for the humans. First, the coordinated attack that kills a massive amount of the human race by destroying its most major cities in minutes. Second, the immediate failed counterattack which showed the aliens were completely impervious to the best conventional weapons Earth had to offer, inflicting overwhelming casualties on every military force the world's nations threw at them. Third, the news of the destruction of NORAD, proving the aliens could penetrate an entire mountain and that no defenses were safe, as well as debilitating North American military command and control capabilities. Fourth, the attempt to use nuclear weapons against the aliens which had no effect whatsoever other than presumably irradiating and destroying any survivors at the location of the target. Of course, the end must have been pretty shocking to any aliens that survived.
- The Sorrow and the Pity: A documentary about the German conquest of France in 1940, the difficulties of the next four years under German occupation, and how French people are still having problems dealing with it 25 years after liberation. Director Max Ophuls also takes time to interview some of the German generals behind that attack and the latter, despite Denazification cannot help but gloat about their victory.
- Starship Troopers begins with the disastrous landing at planet Klendathu. This shifts Earth military's tactics from a large scale invasion to "island-hopping".
- The destruction of Vulcan in Star Trek (2009). Not only was it a massive loss for the Federation, but a signal to the fans that this was not going back to the status quo.
- Star Wars:
- A New Hope: The beginning of the end for the Galactic Empire was the destruction of the First Death Star in the Battle of Yavinnote , which was a huge military and propaganda victory for the Rebel Alliance. The battle not only deprived the Empire of their superweapon, it also inspired the greater galaxy to fight back by showing the Empire wasn't the invincible power they portrayed themselves as.
- Return of the Jedi: The Battle of Endor was supposed to be a coup de grace to the weakened Alliance to solidify the Empire's control over the galaxy, which utterly backfired. After falling into the Emperor's trap, the Rebels destroyed the Second Death Star, smashed the Empire's best fleet, and, most importantly, killed the Emperor and Darth Vader, leading to the collapse of the Empire's chain of command. The resulting power struggles caused the Empire's forces to splinter to the point the outnumbered and outgunned Rebel Alliance could take over much of the galaxy and proclaim the New Republic.
- The First Order's surprise attack on the Hosnian system with Starkiller Base in The Force Awakens destroyed the New Republic's government, annihilated the fleet stationed there and killed billions of people, effectively defeating them in one move. In the absence of the New Republic, the First Order stepped in to fill the power vacuum and become the dominant force in the galaxy, which would last until The Rise of Skywalker.
- Animorphs:
- The Yeerk victory on the Hork-Bajir homeworld was this for the Andalite military, who failed to keep the planet or the Hork-Bajir from falling under Yeerk control. This is even after they resorted to a Synthetic Plague that decimated the Hork-Bajir to keep them from falling into Yeerk hands. For his actions there, Alloran gained a General Ripper reputation, since he was The Scapegoat for the aforementioned atrocities when they failed to turn the tide (he was responsible for the Hork-Bajir genocide, but he was by no means the only one responsible).
- For the Yeerks, their defeat at Leera (in which the Animorphs and Andalites blew up an entire continent, with most of the Yeerk forces on it) was a significant blow against them, since they could no longer use the telepathic Leerans to read enemy minds.
- In Codex Alera, the rampant destruction of the Vord War, epitomised by the obliteration of Alera Imperia, the capital city, and the death of Gaius Sextus, the First Lord, is certain to be seen as this in the future (though the end of the series means readers won't see it). However, while the Vord War was the worst disaster in Aleran history in terms of casualties and destruction, various characters think that the Aleran culture is likely to improve a great deal in the aftermath, as it shattered many of the prejudices and mindsets that kept Alera stable but stagnant for those that had power and miserably unjust for those that didn't, and the series ends on a decidedly hopeful note.
- In The Dresden Files the fall of Archangel early on in the Vampire War. A White Council stronghold and home to one of the strongest Wizards in the world and foremost expert on vampires, who died fighting against the onslaught fell in the first few weeks of the war. Later on, it would become the Wizard's equivalent of the Alamo.
- Andrey Livadny's The History of the Galaxy series has the nuclear bombardment of the Dabog colony by the Earth Alliance strike fleet as the opening round of the First Galactic War. In fact, this trope was President Hammer's original plan. The fleet would show up without warning, nuke two major cities on the planet, and land troops to quickly rout any defenders. Unfortunately for them, they didn't expect the colonists to have very effective Real Robots that routed the invaders. The pissed-off admiral of the fleet has the planet nuked so thoroughly that 1000 years later it's still uninhabitable. In fact, even after a millennium, the mere mention of Dabog is enough to stop a fight. However, the destruction of the colony only serves to band the colonies together and, after decades of vicious fighting, take the fight to Earth itself.
- In Honor Harrington these were the Battle of Manticore for Haven and Grendelsbane disaster during the opening stages of the Second Havenite War and later the Operation Oyster Bay (though Manticorans didn't know its official name) for Manticore, though both nations recovered from these pretty damn quickly, and with a vengeance.
- The Dropsite Massacre of Isstvan V from the Horus Heresy. Four noble space marine legions had suddenly turned traitor and fortified themselves on said planet (after burning Isstvan III and purging their own ranks of loyalists), an overwhelming seven legions were sent to crush the rebellion before it could spread. Instead, four of those legions turned traitor too, and all of them caught the remaining three loyalist legions in a crossfire that saw hundreds of thousands dead. It went From Bad to Worse from there...
- New Jedi Order:
- The Fall of Ithor. Up until then, the Yuuzhan Vong had been seen as minor raiders, or just a Jedi invention, and the planets they destroyed "not important" because they're remote. Then Ithor is taken and its atmosphere set on fire. At this point it becomes clear to most of the Galaxy the Vong aren't like the Yeveetha or the Ssi-Ruuk, and more importantly, they're there to stay.
- The Fall of Coruscant to the Yuuzhan Vong. Under the incredulous eyes of many of the surviving characters, the lights of The City That Never Sleeps go out for the first time in several thousand years.
Han Solo: The end of the world. Who’d’ve thought we’d live to see it? - Romance of the Three Kingdoms has several famous battles that qualify:
- The Battle of Guandu, where Cao Cao's heavily outnumbered army is victorious over that of Yuan Shao. Before the battle, Yuan Shao was the preeminent warlord in northern China, with a strong military and many capable advisors. It was he who looked to be in the best position to reunify the realm. After Guandu, he was supplanted in this position by Cao Cao, and his death just two years later saw a deadly succession struggle break out between his sons, which allowed Cao Cao to finish off the Yuan clan once and for all.
- The Battle of Red Cliffs, where Cao Cao suffers a stunning defeat at the hands of the much smaller army of the Sun-Liu alliance. Cao Cao went into the battle with an enormous army and navy, having just bloodlessly absorbed the naval forces of Jingzhou after the death of Liu Biao to supplement his powerful northern force of mainly cavalry. The Sun-Liu coalition was the only significant force standing between him and the reunification of China, and they mustered just 50,000 men against his claimed force of 850,000 (historically, Cao Cao's army is estimated to have numbered 'only' 200,000 or so). Through a combination of capable military leadership and Cao Cao's own overconfidence, the allies pulled off an incredible victory that saw the decimation of Cao Cao's forces and ended his dreams of reunifying the realm for good.
- The Shu-Han defeat to Wu in the Jingzhou Campaign, which also sees the capture and execution of Guan Yu. Jingzhou with its central location was an ideal base from which Shu-Han could make efforts to reunify the realm and restore the Han Dynasty; furthermore, the Jingzhou army personally led and trained by Guan Yu was arguably the best-trained and equipped force in the state. The loss of this province, its army, and its commander was a heavy blow to Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang's ambitions for restoring the Han.
- After Guan Yu's aforementioned defeat and death, Liu Bei is intent on avenging his sworn brother. His desire for vengeance is only strengthened by the death of his remaining sworn brother, Zhang Fei, at the hands of subordinates whom Zhang had bullied. These men had then fled to Wu, causing Liu Bei to blame Wu for the death of both his brothers. Despite Sun Quan's efforts to pacify him - such as by immediately having Zhang Fei's murderers executed and their heads sent to Shu-Han - Liu Bei launches a massive invasion of Wu. The invasion goes well until summer, when Liu Bei orders his men to spread out across a wide forested area to take refuge from the unrelenting seasonal heat. This gives the Wu supreme commander Lu Xun the chance to use a fire attack, with the forest acting as tinder for his flames. The widely-dispersed Shu-Han forces stand no chance, and almost the entire force is annihilated. Historically and in the novel, this is known as the Battle of Xiaoting, and it put paid to Liu Bei's ambitions of restoring the Han. He would die with this dream unrealised, with Zhuge Liang left to try his best to honour his lord's dying aspiration.
- The Silmarillion: The Battle Of Unnumbered Tears. It begins as a noble effort of the Elves, Men, and Dwarves to finish Morgoth once and for all (and to avenge the Elves' previous shocking defeat by Morgoth's forces in the Battle of Sudden Flame). It's the first coalition of all the races together to fight Morgoth, and the greatest army seen so far in the world outside of the gods. It gets crushed so badly and so many people die that Morgoth literally makes a hill out of the corpses. The worst part is that they never had a chance. And things get so much worse from there.
- The Battle of the Azure Nebula in the Star Trek Novel 'Verse, the most one-sided battle in the franchise's history. There are over 300 ships from the Federation, its allies, and even its rivals said to have enough firepower to take on ten Borg cubes. Then the wormhole in the nebula opened and over 7500 Borg ships came through. The allied force barely qualified as a nuisance, and only Voyager survived.
- The Battle of Yonkers in World War Z. They threw everything but the kitchen sink at the enemy and still lost. Though that was actually a detriment in the end, as all their gear and defenses and tactics were based on fighting an enemy that obeyed no human nor life norms (no pain, no fear, no stopping...) Even in-universe it's considered to have been an exercise in lethally stupid planning, and out of universe is even worse (see the long entry in Hollywood Tactics).
- In Doctor Who, much of the Last Great Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks has only been explained through dialogue by the Doctor himself. However, we do have a definite shocking defeat that was said on the show: the Fall of the Cruciform, which was so shocking that it made the Master himself flee to the end of the universe.
- There was another one. The Doctor himself mentions that he was at the Fall of Arcadia, and that he might be able to come to terms with it someday. In "The Day of the Doctor" it's revealed that Arcadia was the second biggest city on Gallifrey, and its fall to the Daleks meant that the Time Lords were on the verge of annihilation. This ends up motivating the Doctor to destroy both races.
- The Doctor inflicts the demoralizing side of this trope on Colonel Manton after temporarily gaining an edge at the Battle of Demon's Run, forcing him to bear the insulting nickname "Colonel Runaway" by giving his troops the order to run away as punishment for targeting people that he loves.
- The Battle of Serenity Valley in Firefly, which was apparently the battle that lost the war for the Independents and sent Malcolm Reynolds over the Despair Event Horizon.
- Game of Thrones:
- The Greyjoy Rebellion had the burning of the Lannister fleet anchored at Lannisport, the destruction of the Iron Fleet at Fair Isle (causing Euron Greyjoy to flee after the rebellion) and the siege of Pyke (caused the deaths of Balon Greyjoy's sons and for Theon Greyjoy to be sent to Winterfell as Lord Stark's ward which is a fancy name for hostage).
- Robert's Rebellion had The Battle of the Trident (the death of Prince Rhaegar).
- The Faith Militant Uprising which caused the decline of the Faith's authority.
- The Targaryen Conquest led to the subjugation of the Iron Islands and the submission of Houses Lannister & Stark
- The last great Dothraki horde was defeated at the Battle of Qohor. Since then, they had foretold of the "Stallion who mounts the world" who will unite the khalasars again and ride to conquest to the ends of the earth.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: The Southlanders and Numenorian forces sudden loss against Adar's Orcs is going to have consequences for the centuries to come. Their victory is short-lived as Adar's true plan unfolds. He manipulates the situation to trigger the eruption of Mount Orodruin, causing a devastating loss for the combined forces. This shocking defeat not only decimates the Southlanders and Numenorian forces, but the Orcs take the Southlands for themselves and rename the region Mordor.
- In the finale of Power Rangers Turbo, the planet Eltar falls, stripping the Rangers of their powers, forcing them into space to try and rescue their old mentor Zordon.
- The Battle of Wolf 359 from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Taking place relatively close to Earth, a single Borg ship crippled the Federation fleet by destroying every single one of the thirty-nine ships sent to stop it and left completely undamaged. By the time the Enterprise arrived and was able to destroy it, it had reached Earth's orbit. The battle very strongly established the threat of the Borg and had a lasting impact on the franchise, being particularly relevant to many characters and plots in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Jean-Luc Picard, who had been assimilated by the Borg and was commanding the cube, occasionally has his role in the battle thrown in his face, and Star Trek: Picard implies that the lingering effects of the battle have led to discrimination against former Borg drones.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine provides a few:
- The Dominion attacking and destroying New Bajor, and shortly after the Galaxy-class USS Odyssey. The writers invoked this trope to emphasize the Dominion threat - A starship the same class as the Enterprise stood no chance against this foe.
- Enabran Tain, possibly the most brilliant director in the history of the Obsidian Order (he was the only one to live to retirement), a genius tactician and stunning power player, organizes a joint Order/Romulan Tal Shiar to destroy the Founders' homeworld. But for all his smarts, Tain missed the head of the Tal Shiar was a Changeling himself, leading to a trap that massacred the Cardassian/Romulan forces. In short, arguably the best leader the Order ever had is also responsible for its ultimate defeat.
- Tain's debacle also doesn't just destroy the Obsidian Order. Since it's one of the three branches of the Cardassian Government, the Order's destruction creates a power vacuum that throws the entire Union into chaos from late Season Three onward. This sets off a chain of events that leads to Cardassia joining the Dominion and ultimately seeing their homeworld devastated and nearly a billion people wiped out.
- The loss of Betazed in the Deep Space Nine series to the Dominion.
- The Breen attack on San Francisco. Not as damaging as some of the others on this list, but shocking in that they were able to stab at the heart of The Federation.
- One was planned by the Dominion as the final act of the war. After defeating the Federation they planned to wipe out all life on Earth, believing the demoralizing effect would severely limit revolutionary activities.
- In some Star Trek Expanded Universe books, this happened in the Mirror Universe after the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance defeated the Terran Empire. As punishment, and an example, they turned Earth into a lifeless rock, possibly Vulcan as well. Which could almost be justified, if those coexist with Emperor Georgiou laying waste to Qo'noS with a hydro bomb.
- The Starfleet/Klingon Alliance got their turn to inflict one in kind in retaking DS9 from the Dominion right as they removed the minefield plugging the Alpha Quadrant side of the Bajoran Wormhole. In a last-ditch effort to seal the Wormhole, Captain Sisko and his crew aboard their battle-damaged starship Defiant dashe into the wormhole right after they witness the minefield being destroyed. He originally went in to more mundanely destroy it, but the Bajoran Prophets objected to their Emissary's self-destructive decision. He ended up bullying the Prophets into denying the Gamma Quadrant element of The Dominion from sending reinforcements, starting by making an already-in-transit Dominion armada with a four-figure sum of warships simply cease to exist. The Dominion has to hastily abandon the station to the advancing Alliance forces, Gul Dukat is pushed into a Villainous Breakdown over it, and the Dominion subsequently had to start their own war industry on this side of the Bajoran Wormhole to compensate.
- In Guild Wars: Prophecies the Searing of Ascalon proved to be this for humanity as a whole. The unexpected devastation of Ascalon set off a chain reaction that led to the destruction of Orr and a severe weakening of Kryta. Between the first game and Guild Wars 2 humanity has only continued to lose territory with many in Ebonhawk still wishing to reclaim a land that now belongs to the Charr.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic contains two examples in one battle. First the Empire takes Corellia (a founding Republic world and major industrial center) out of nowhere; the shock is only enhanced when it's discovered that it wasn't totally a military conquest, and that Corellia's ruling body actually defected to the Empire. It flips around when the Republic rallies to take Corellia back, and in the process kills off half the Dark Council (although most of them actually died in infighting) and a significant percentage of the Empire's military. This was largely due to a frankly ludicrous Gambit Pileup caused by all 8 class plotlines coming to a head at the same place and time.
- World of Warcraft:
- The War of the Ancients finished with the Highborne elves on the losing side and their people blaming them for the destruction that resulted. This lead to their exile to Quel'Thalas.
- The arrival of the orcs was an Outside-Context Problem for everyone on Azeroth. They sacked Stormwind before any opposition could be mustered.
- The Scourge was equally unexpected, but it was fought back. The shock came when Prince Arthas returned from Northrend not as victor but as a death knight under the Scourge's control, killing his father, the paladin Uther, and anyone who could save Lordaeron from being overrun. His campaign ends with the archdemon Archimonde demolishing Dalaran.
- The Kaldorei lost their beloved demigod Cenarius when Grom Hellscream was tempted to empower himself and his warriors with corrupting fel magic. It would be a long time before he returned.
- Wrath of the Lich King has the battle at the Wrathgate, where Alliance and Horde both hoped to score a victory against the Scourge, but instead both lost a great leader and many soldiers to the combination of the Lich King's power and the treachery of some Forsaken. This both set them back and renewed tensions between them.
- On three occasions, the trolls have turned to blasphemous deicides following a major defeat.
- Mists of Pandaria begins with Garrosh Hellscream destroying the city of Theramore. This turns Jaina Proudmoore from seeking peace with the Horde to leading the charge against it.
- Legion starts off with the battle of Broken Shore, where the united army of both the Alliance and the Horde assault an island where the Burning Legion
is building its power. It ends with a retreat after losing many soldiers and famed figures like King Varian Wyrnn, Vol'jin and Tirion Fordring.
- Battle for Azeroth opens with a devastating loss for both factions. The world tree of Teldrassil that serves as the night elves' home is burned down on the orders of Warchief Sylvanas. In retaliation the Alliance storms the Undercity, the Forsaken's capital, and it is left uninhabitable.
- BattleTech has multiple spread across the game's metaplot:
- For The Taurian Concordat, their loss in the Reunification War came to dominate the Concordat's national character. Despite their loss being practically a Foregone Conclusion from day one (the Concordat had 56 worlds and was opposing the 1000+ world-sized Star League), the Concordat held on for 20 years and severely blooded a military force the size of their combined population. When it finally was forced to throw in the towel, this caused a severe blow to their national pride and the Protector who was forced to sign the peace treaty killed herself the next day. The Concordat would get its revenge some 200 years later when they helped Stephan Amaris put an end to the Star League, and would continue to exist in a state of Space Cold War with the Inner Sphere for the next five centuries.
- The Kentares Massacre and its aftermath during the First Succession War became this to House Kurita and the Draconis Combine. After the assassination of the Combine's Coordinator on Kentares IV ("Assassination" being debateable as he was in military uniform and thus a valid military target for the sniper responsible), the Combine responded by wholesale massacring the population of the planet. Not only did this sit extremely poorly with many of the traditionalist warriors of the Combine, but it inspired severe Revanchist elements in the owners of the planet, the Federated Suns. Inspired by the massacre the enraged Federated Suns would massively counterattack and drive the Combine from their territory. The atrocities were so beyond the pale that it compelled on-world members of the ostensibly neutral organization ComStar, which operated the interstellar comms network after the fall of the Star League, to break that neutrality and broadcast footage of the atrocitiy so it wouldn't go unnoticed. Some mercenaries under contract with the Combine declared their contracts null and void in response to the atrocity. Into the time period of the main continuity, despisement of the Combine persists on Kentares and in the FedCom Draconis March territory in general because of that event.
- For the Clans, the Battle of Tukayyid became the final nail in the coffin after suffering rare but infamous setbacks during Operation Revival, and completely shattered the idea of Clan superiority. Having been offered a 'fair fight' by their own rules, the overconfident Crusader Clans gleefully threw their finest warriors at the entrenched ComStar forces, only to see all but three Clans humiliatingly defeated and only Clan Wolf succeeding at an outright win (and that still cost them one of their Khans). Forced into a fifteen-year truce, Tukayyid broke the mystique of the Clans being an unstoppable horde and left them stunned enough that they didn't attempt large land grabs of Inner Sphere territory again for nearly a century.
- Warhammer 40,000:
- Many battles in the Horus Heresy can qualify to some degree, but the two most famous candidates are the Drop Site Massacre (where three different Space Marine legions were nearly annihilated, and Ferrus Manus died) and the Siege of Terra (ended up as this for both sides, with the Imperium losing its Emperor to And I Must Scream and its favorite son iin battle, and Chaos losing the one man who could hold it together). Ten thousand years later, no side involved has fully recovered from the losses at those battles.
- The Great Scouring after the Siege of Terra ruined the traitor legions and the portions of the civilian administration that supported them, forcing almost all of them to retreat into the Eye of Terror and kicking off the Legion Wars. These subsequent conflicts destroyed any lingering sense of unity between the separate traitor legions save a shared hatred of the loyalists, but that only goes so far when they serve rival gods or just hate the others on principle.
- The Battle of Skalathrax that took place in the closing years of the Great Scouring in the Legion Wars is a strange case for the World Eaters. A siege on a battlegroup of Emperor's Children, fellow traitors serving a rival god, was stalling, on a planet with a climate notorious for nigh-unsurvivable nights that require shelter, one of which was on its way. This caused Khârn, the strongest berserker in the army, to grab a flamethrower and set all available shelters on fire, slaughtering anyone who tried to stop him. The battle descended into anarchic bloodbath as warriors from both sides fled, fought each other over the little shelter remaining, or just attacked whatever was closest to them. Neither side could rightly claim victory, but the World Eaters definitely lost—they'd never been a particularly unified bunch, being seen as wild, disorganized brutes on the best of days, but their massive losses, combined with the anarchy and resentment that came with a good chunk of those losses being self-inflicted, destroyed the Legion's cohesion. Since then, they've consisted solely of a bunch of divided warbands that mostly work for other armies as shock troops, only uniting when Angron himself is on the battlefield. The Emperor's Children didn't come out of it looking much better. The only person who did win the battle? Khârn himself, who happily added a massive tally onto his personal kill counter (as well as his new nickname "The Betrayer") and remains adamant that everyone who died that day deserved it for being a coward, with Khorne, the World Eaters' patron and a psychotic War God, evidently agreeing on the issue.
- Destiny: After the Battle of Burning Lake alerted the Vanguard to the threat posed by the Hive, they gathered a force of thousands of Guardians for an invasion of the Moon, which the Hive had converted into their stronghold in the solar system. The resulting battle was known as the Great Disaster. In the aftermath, the Moon was cordoned off to all Guardians, and Vanguard doctrine shifted from massed armies to small, agile fireteams, which are more resistant to the powers of the Hive.
- Deus Ex: the (French!) terrorist group Silhouette blows up the Statue of Liberty! Actually committed by MJ12 itself, conveniently framing Silhouette in the process.
- In Disciples II: Rise of the Elves, the Mountain Clan's loss of Falhen Heim shattered what little confidence they had left. They have all but retreated from the outside world back into their mountains by the time of Part 3.
- Dragon Age: Origins has the Battle of Ostagar, in which the Player Character participates. Much of the Fereldan army, and all of the Grey Wardens but the Player Character and The Lancer Alistair, are killed after Teyrn Loghain's forces, The Cavalry, abandon the battlefield.
- In Dragon Age II, after the fall of Lothering to the Darkspawn horde, Hawke's family became one of thousands of refugees that fled Ferelden to escape the Blight, eventually settling in Kirkwall in the Free Marches. Part of the backstory of a Warrior/Rogue Hawke, their brother Carver and Aveline Vallen is that they were all survivors of the King's Army at Ostagar and only narrowly escaped with their lives after Loghain's betrayal.
- The Elder Scrolls
- In the backstory, for all of their many victories, it was a Nord defeat that had perhaps the most profound impact on Tamriellic history. After centuries of domination and expansion out of Skyrim, their army, led by the Tongues (masters of the Thu'um), was annihilated at Red Mountain in Morrowind by a coalition of Dwemer and Chimer forces. This marked the farthest expanse of the Nordic empire and led to a drop-off in the use of the Thu'um as a weapon after Jurgen Windcaller, one of the defeated Tongues, created the Way of the Voice to use the Thu'um only to honor the gods. The after effects of the loss at Red Mountain could still be felt in the storylines to both Morrowind and Skyrim.
- Another was the Sacking of Alinor by Tiber Septim's legions, with the aid of the Dwemer-crafted Numidium. The beautiful crystal city and its legions of Magic Knight defenders were crushed within an hour of fighting, leaving the Altmer (High Elves) under the rule of Men for the first time in their thousands of years of history. This only exacerbated their hatred of humanity and when opportunity arose after the Oblivion Crisis, they struck back hard under the leadership of the Thalmor.
- EVE Online has the battle of Vak-Atioth
, a Curb-Stomp Battle between the Jove and Amarr Empires, which sent the latter reeling into Vestigial Empire status. Later on, the Amarr reversed their fortune in the Battle of Mekhios, where they wiped out an entire Minmatar fleet and send the remnants of their forces packing.
- In FreeSpace, the fall of Tombaugh Station to the Shivan Lucifer was treated this way, even though we never got to see it ingame or in a cutscene.
- Halo:
- The UNSC has the Fall Of Reach, which was the equivalent of America's CENTCOM, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Fort Bragg, and Norad being taken out all at once. And that's not counting the civilian casualties.
- While much of the Covenant fleet sent to Reach was also destroyed, it was their subsequent failure to prevent the Master Chief from destroying Alpha Halo, an ancient megastructure that they consider holy, that sent shockwaves across the Covenant. Especially since their commander, Thel 'Vadamee, was one of the Covenant's very best, having remained completely undefeated up until that point. The Prophets ended up laying the blame on him (despite the fact that his orders had been continually subverted by his overseeing Prophet) and declaring him Arbiter, starting a chain of events which eventually led to the dissolution of the Covenant itself.
- When Flood overrun the Covenant capital of High Charity, it signals a massive loss for the Covenant, and the turning of the tide in favor of not only the Elites and their subordinates, but humanity's own continued survival.
- After the end of the Human-Covenant War, humanity is one of the major powers in the Orion Arm. And then an entire city on Earth is wiped out in Halo 4 when the Didact uses a weapon that turns any sentient being into a mindless Energy Being soldier. It's only thanks to the Master Chief that he is stopped from doing that to all of humanity. The truth of the attack is completely covered up from almost all of humanity, but UNSC high command is rightfully spooked.
- Mass Effect has Shanxi, a human colony that was blockaded and besieged by the Turians during the First Contact War until it was forced to surrender, serving as humanity's introduction to the galactic community at large. Humanity successfully dislodging the turians from the colony in the subsequent battle also established that despite being newcomers, humanity would not be a pushover.
- The Reapers plan for countless Cycles involved coming through the hidden relay inside the Citadel to wipe out galactic leadership and shut down the Relay network, allowing them to easily wipe out all galactic life system by system. Only the final act of defiance from surviving prothean scientists on Ilos prevented this from happening in the current Cycle, having altered the control signal that told the Keepers to open the Citadel relay.
- Before all this, the krogans' defeat during the Krogan Rebellions and the use of the genophage against them severely damaged their population and their psyche, with many of them adopting a resentful and fatalistic worldview that negatively affects them to the in-universe present day,
- In addition to the Reaper invasions across the galaxy, the fall of Thessia in Mass Effect 3.
- Project Wingman:
- In the main campaign, the Federation finds itself subjected to three shocking defeats in near succession.
- First is the destruction of the Solona Communications Array. It sets off a chain reaction that leads to the Federation’s defeat in Cascadia’s war for independence. Throughout the war, the Federation used to Array to prevent the truth about the war from getting out into the world, and used it to black out the CIF’s communications. So when Scicario destroys the Array, the Federation becomes disorganized and subjected to the CIF’s own electronic warfare.
- Immediately after the Solona Communications Array is destroyed, the Federation tried to pull its forces back over the Bering Straight. The Cascadians launched an aerial assault to prevent the transports from escaping, and the Federation sent in reinforcements to protect them. So Scicario is sent in, and thanks to them, the Federation ends up losing most of its air power over Cascadia, with half of Crimson Squadron being shot down by Monarch.
- The third is the destruction of Task Force One, the Federation’s most elite aerial fleet. The fleet is moored at the Kingdom of Sawaiki, so Cascadia has Sicario and a battalion of mercenaries assault the fleet while they’re still in the harbor. After Task Force One’s destruction, it is mentioned that much of the remaining Federation forces have lost their morale to continue fighting.
- In the "Frontline-59” campaign, Driver is tasked with assaulting the Cascadian’s Forward Operation Base in Magadan. He does this, by flying through the underground highway, which catches the Cascadians completely off guard. After destroying the base, Federation special forces collect whatever battle plans the Cascadians had for the invasion of Magadan, ensuring that they’ll be kicked out soon.
- In the main campaign, the Federation finds itself subjected to three shocking defeats in near succession.
- The destruction of Raccoon City in the Resident Evil franchise proves to be this for the Umbrella Corporation. Before it, nobody aside from STARS was aware of their awful experiments, they had the entire city in their pocket and they were untouchable. Following its destruction, they become pariahs worldwide, their actions lead to them being seen as monsters, and it ultimately results in the company collapsing because nobody wants to go near them.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic:
- The first battle of Bothawui was this for the Empire. Until then, they had been on a rampage across outerlying Republic territories, taking them entirely by surprise and seeming an unstoppable force. Then they turned their gaze towards Bothawui, an important mid-rim world. The Republic predicted their attack and served the Empire a devastating defeat, wiping out the entire army sent to take the planet with very little casualties. This became a major propaganda victory as well, proving that the Republic could proect its holdings. When the Empire attempted to recouperate with a much bigger attack force, the Republic defenders were hopelessly outnumbered but fought so valiantly that the Empire were forced to retreat even after wiping them out, and if anything it became an even bigger propaganda win for the Republic.
- The loss of Corellia was one for the Republic. Losing one of the Republic's founding worlds, at the heart of their territory, is bad enough. Losing it because their entire leadership turned traitor is even worse.
- By far the defeat that has the most impact on the present of the game, however, is the Sacking of Coruscant. During peace negotiations on Alderaan, the Empire made a surprise strike against the Republic capital itself, causing massive destruction and leaving the Jedi Temple in ruins. While they could never hope to hold it, the fact that the Empire held the Republic's capital as hostage meant they could force an extremely one-sided peace treaty.
- In WarCraft III, the Nerubians serve the the undead scourge after they lost the War of the Spider about ten years prior to the main game.
- In The Order of the Stick, the heroes are trying to protect the five Gates from Xykon. After two gates are destroyed (rendering them useless to Xykon, but also weakening reality), the heroes decide that Xykon is likely to target either Girard's Gate or Kraagor's Gate next, since Soon's Gate is in the well-defended Azure City, full of paladins. Thus, they don't even bother preparing for the possibility of Soon's Gate being targeted. So, of course, it is, and Azure City gets overrun, thousands die or are enslaved, and the heroes and their allies spend the next several story arcs split and mostly playing defense.
- The loss of the Homeworlds for the Terrans in Exo Squad, although the utter destruction of Mars late in the second season was an even more devastating blow to the Neosapiens. Phaeton built most of his anti-Terran propaganda upon it afterwards.
- The Legend of Korra Book 4 sees Korra lose to Kuvira in an arranged duel over the fate of the city of Zaofu (whom Kuvira already amassed an army to take). Since she had previously had a 3-year long Convalescence after being physically and psychologically broken by the third book's finale, she loses. After she gets better and back into top form, she resolves to not let Republic City fall to Kuvira's conquest too.
- Republic City itself borders on being this too. It is located on former Earth Kingdom territory that was lost to the Fire Nation's unexpected assault during the last great war. A century or so later, Kuvira and many other Earth Kingdom citizens still aren't willing to let that indignity go uncorrected.
- In the backstory of Steven Universe, the Diamond Authority suffered one when Pink Diamond's attempt to mine the planet Earth pushes Rose Quartz to start a rebellion that ends in Pink Diamond being shattered (at least, that is how it seems to have happened), infuriating her three Diamond siblings to the point of retaliation by Corruption Wave and leaving behind a gem cluster that would destroy the planet and all life on it. (Rose Quartz and Steven counter these two threats respectively.) Blue Diamond to this day remains in an extreme state of grief from Pink Diamond's demise. This is resolved however when it's revealed Pink Diamond was never shattered, since Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond were the same gem.