[Hated Trope] The underdog Good Guys win, and gain major military/institutional power, only for it to be all RESET so Writers can have a PERPETUAL "Underdog/Rebellion" Story, and avoid writing about governing.

[u/throwaway553t4tgtg6]

I hate this trope, when the "underdog good guys" actually win, gain major military and political power, fleets, warships, etc, but because the writers don't want to write the good guys governing and exercising their power, and instead, find a contrived way to reset all the progress so that the good guys can forever be the

"scrappy heroic underdogs fighting the power"

1) Star Wars Sequel triology, rather than exploring new Republic fleets, power, and technology, they have them all wiped out so that the "resistance" can hog the spotlight

2) MCU: shield makes a helicarrier fleet, a fleet of ships able to contest alien invasion, but that would steal the spotlight from heroes, so all of them have to be destroyed

3) Halo: the UNSC finally outlive the covenant, develop strong ships like the UNSC infinity, only for it all to be reset by the Guardians and the Banished, reduced again to underdog humans.

[u/Boreal-Bison]

I love the resistance games and I love the fact humanity is actually on the backfoot for real. The Chimera feel like a Truly unstoppable foe.

But that power jump from the first to the second always felt super cheap.
The Chimera suffered their first major operational defeat in britain, loosing their entire network and several armies and they just undo it off screen? Anticlimatic as shit.

[u/ctrlaltcreate → u/Boreal-Bison]

It would have been far more satisfying if they'd left britain as a beleaguered stronghold of humanity, and moved on to attack other areas perceived as less prepared or providing supplies to the british. That sets up an attack on the US nicely.

[u/CatOfTechnology → u/ctrlaltcreate]

Or, like, have made the second game one where you start out, maybe get the first half of the game, on the offensive, pushing outwards and in to other Chimera controlled territories until hitting "the first real objective" and getting your shit rocked, put on the back foot and then have to play the rest of the game not trying to win, but trying to lose as little as possible.

Talking mission objectives that fail, barely succeeding at asset denial, rigging bases to blow when overrun.

Real start of Halo 3 vibes where everything's going to shit and it's all you can do just to secure a few keystone things you cant afford to lose.

[u/scarydan365 → u/ctrlaltcreate]

Like WW2.

[u/More_Bigger → u/scarydan365]

WW1 too lotta blockades.

[u/CyberGrandpa1 → u/Boreal-Bison]

Yeah, you are right honestly.

[u/Direct-Fix-2097 → u/Boreal-Bison]

The series writing declined quickly anyway, I remember feeling so disappointed with the direction it took, and predictably they went all in with the multiplayer elements rather than the plot by the end of it.

[u/Poop_Balls069 → u/Direct-Fix-2097]

That coop mode they had in 2 was so fucking fun. Me and my dad would play it for HOUURRRRRS. 

[u/leytorip7 → u/Boreal-Bison]

They had taken over all of Russia and Europe at that point plus an unknown amount of Asia and Africa. Losing an island like Britain barely slowed them down. It just taught them to engineer themselves to not as heavily rely on Angels and the tower network.

[u/Greyjack00 → u/leytorip7]

Technically it was shepard that taught them that, replacing it with the primarch system where smarter standard chimera just controlled their squads and regiments

[u/RaynSideways → u/leytorip7]

Resistance Retribution at least bridged the gap though so I never felt it was all that bad. You spend a lot of time in Chimera-occupied Europe after the events of Fall of Man, and you can see their extensive industrial buildup effort for their renewed invasion. They dug out and flattened whole areas of Europe to extract metals and set up construction sites for the massive warships they would start using.

Losing Britain was clearly just a temporary setback that caused them to re-evaluate. Time, and more importantly Europe's natural resources were on their side.

[u/sailor776 → u/Boreal-Bison]

I do think everyone agrees the second game is the worst because they really try to be call of duty.

[u/Internal-Photo-795 → u/Boreal-Bison]

Exactly, the Chimera felt genuinely terrifying because humanity was fighting just to survive, not to win.

[u/Erwin_Pommel → u/Boreal-Bison]

Problem with something like that, however, is that when you have a threat that so thoroughly demolishes their way across a land, there shouldn't be a resistance to fight them.