| ShortSummary | - The Alliance returns to planet Rock to convince Lord Mantle but Tekla fails. Emperor Femur suggests a cunning plan. However, the Bone emperor's intentions are only to steal the Battle Moons for himself. Latter, Blokk orders his legions to swarm on planet Rock while the defensive moons are away. Graveheart and Tekla head to recapture the Battle Moons and save the day in time.
- The assault on planet Remora begins. Cryos is once more sovereign of planet Ice. Bone, Fire and Ice stand against their common enemy. On planet Ice, Tekla and Voxx search for a special weapon underground. Blokk, Lamprey, and Voyd unleash the ultimate power of Remora against their enemies. Blokk fights on and Emperor Femur abandons his comrades leaving them to fend for themselves. Remora fires and destroys half the battle fleets.
- Someone has kidnapped lady Zera, the young princess of planet Ice. It turns out to be Blokk who wants King Cryos to choose between family and duty. If the Ice king chooses family he will have to abdicate the throne. Cryos and Jade rescue Zera while Tekla and Graveheart defend the palace with prince Pyrus and Femur. At the end, the Ice sovereign surrenders the throne to the army commander Medstar.
- The Beast Planet targets planet Fire. Graveheart and Tekla must hurry to find the world engines. During the invasion, Graveheart is injured while saving prince Pyrus. The Grand Vizier witnesses the sacrifice and reconsiders his judgment towards the outlanders. In the end, everything is lost for planet Fire but the Grand Vizier sacrifices himself and tells prince Pyrus that his new friends are indeed worthy ones. Prince Pyrus orders the Vizier to evacuate with the rest of his people, because he still needs his guidance and company. The Vizier disobeys, saying that Pyrus is old enough to rule, and that the Vizier does not want to die a coward. The Grand Vizier uses the world engines to ram Planet Fire onto the Beast Planet's claw, hoping that it will destroy the Beast Planet, The Beast Planet consumes planet Fire anyway, killing the Grand Vizier.
- Jade, princess Tekla, Lady Zera, Pelvus and Zuma head for "Moon Over Mayhem" to socialize. In an attempt to reconcile, Tekla gives Jade the key of the Cluster defenses. During this pleasure trip they are attacked by Fire’s pirates and smugglers as well as Lamprey and her drones.
- Tekla and Lamprey battle for the domination of Tekla's body and spirit. Tekla manages to defeat her enemy and regains control of herself.
- The Aurora travels to planet Fire in hope of convincing prince Pyrus to join them. The obstacle here is the Grand Vizier who doesn’t trust strangers. He orders Graveheart and King Cryos to survive a labyrinth of lava where lava dogs are lethal beasts. Meanwhile, Zera, Cryos' daughter, is furious at prince Pyrus for not intervening but a Beast battalion interrupts their argument and wounds the young lord of Fire. However, Jade arrives at the last moment and saves the children. Graveheart and Cryos survive the test and Fire is pleased to join the Alliance.
- Graveheart believes he is not the right leader for the Alliance. The miner remembers when his younger brother Mica died on a trip to planet Fire. He failed him. Jade consoles her old friend and convinces him to stand firm.
- The Beast has captured Planet Rock, and starts to round up the planets' population. On the Prison Planet, the fight between the two factions continues, but Graveheart, Cryos, Jade, and Femur are reunited. The Sand people find the Prison Planet and guide the planet back to the Alliance system. The planet teleports back, appearing between the Beast Planet and Planet Rock. As the Beast Planet's claw closes onto the Prison Planet, Sternum activates the teleport engines, teleporting both the Prison and Beast Planets to parts unknown.
- The Alliance is surprised when Planet Fire catches up to them. Apparently the Grand Vizier is alive but his personality seems different. It is revealed that it isn’t the Grand Vizier but a creation of the Beast planet. The Alliance retreats into a nebula to evade destruction from Blokk and his battle forces.
- The Alliance detects a signal from a mysterious planet which is determined to be a battleground. Graveheart and Cryos are traveling together as are Jade and Femur. The two groups crash land separately and lose contact with their fleet. The miner and the Ice King are found by Jewelia and her band of criminals. Jewelia develops a liking for the former rock soldier. Jade and Femur meet Sternum who is a though warrior from planet Bone. Sternum relocates the prison planet to another location evading the scanners of any possible enemies.
- The Alliance of the Cluster find Planet Jungle. They are willing to sacrifice this non-living world to trap the Beast Planet and Blokk's forces. On a trip to planet Jungle they place explosives but living plants ask for their help. Tekla finds out the planet's world engines were destroyed long ago. The vegetation on this world is doomed. A sentient plant asks Femur to preserve a small part of the planet's life. Planet Jungle explodes, but the Beast Planet is unharmed.
- The episode opens with Lord Mantle's funeral. As Graveheart speaks and the Alliance watches, Blokk kills three Rock soldiers. Tekla, Pyrus and Zera confront Jade to demand why she would betray them, and Graveheart reveals that it was to convince Mantle to lend them the Battle Moons for the fight with Remora. Graveheart then asks Jade to be the next ruler of Rock. After an argument, she agrees and goes for the test. Blokk enters the World Engine and kills all the Rock soldiers except the captain. He steers the planet towards the closest star. He then contacts the Alliance and demands that Graveheart face him. Cryos informs Graveheart, who goes to meet Blokk in the world engines as Jade takes the royalty test. She passes the test. The Graveheart battles Blokk while Voxx, Tekla and Cryos go to repair the engines and get the planet away from the star. Voxx repairs the world engine allowing Jade to steer the planet away as Graveheart finishes Blokk off by plunging the Forcefield Generator inside him. In the aftermath, Jade makes Graveheart an official Rock citizen, and the series ends with the Beast Planet devouring another planet, the subtitle below echoing the first episode: "Planet Reptizar: On Doomsday."
- Captain Blaze and his renegade squad steal one of the Battle Moons and attempt to regain their lost honor in destroying the Beast Planet. But when Blokk and his battle fleets almost seize Prince Pyrus, Captain Blaze returns to save his young lord. At the command center, Jade is contacted by Lord Mantle to finish their bargain.
- Both factions of the prison planet prepare for their next battle. Jade helps Sternum with the maintenance around the base while Cryos and Graveheart devise a plan to get to the teleport engines. Meanwhile Tekla, Zera and Pyrus receive a summons from Lord Mantle. Mantle reveals to the three his intent of wiping out the Beast Planet with an all-out assault from the battle moons. Pyrus objects because his people now live on the battle moons. Back on the prison planet, Jewelia begins her assault on Sternum's base while Cryos and Graveheart move underground. Detecting enemy presence in the underground and threatening Femur to provide Jade with backup, while Sternum intercepts Graveheart and Cryos. Both groups engage with each other. Graveheart seeks to avenge Jade’s supposed death. Jade herself narrowly escapes assassination from Jewelia's sniper. In retaliation for Rock's attack, the Beast sends out its armada which wipes out Rock's defenses easily. Blokk and his drone infiltrate Mantle's throne room. Mantle calls back the battle moons once he realizes that his moons are doing no damage. Blokk and Mantle engage in battle; Blokk proves victorious and kills the Rock Lord.
- Emperor Femur and Pelvus must make good their commitment to return to the Alliance. They agree to feed all the people of the Alliance with the resources of Bone, and so Bone rejoins the Alliance.
- The Aurora, Cryos' flagship, travels to planet Rock to convince Lord Mantle to join the Alliance. Sadly, the army arrests Graveheart and the Rock King expels the Ice King determining he is still his greatest enemy. Lord Mantle condemns Graveheart to imprisonment. Meanwhile, Blokk the supreme warlord of the Beast launches an invasion on planet Rock with Voyd permission. Jade, a rock commander and a long time friend of Graveheart, releases him and they run to the Core central to activate the planet’s defense - the Battle Moons. They succeed but Lord Mantle banishes the “miner” still not believing in the alliance. Despite all odds, Jade agrees to join them, claiming to need to watch her friend's back.
- It turns out the prison planet can teleport itself. Sternum is revealed to have been Femur’s brother. Tekla and Pyrus must confront Lord Mantle, who wants to rule the Alliance. Mantle shuts down the defenses for the entire Alliance endangering the fleet. Meanwhile, Jewelia and Graveheart lead an attack on Sternum’s camp but are driven off by its superior arsenal. Sternum was the rightful ruler of Bone before being framed by his brother and seeks revenge on Femur. Graveheart and Jewelia retreat while Tekla has no choice but to pass over leadership to Mantle. The Rock King reveals a key which is the defense key given by Tekla to Jade. On the prison planet Jade is set to kill Femur.
- The Alliance travels to planet Sand. Lady Zera meets one of the Sand People, Zuma. She is a telepath. In the end, the great Sand People save the day with their mind power.
- Someone frames Jade for murder on planet Fire. On this world the punishment for murder is a death sentence. Graveheart leads prince Pyrus and the Grand Vizier on an investigation and the miner determines the criminal's fingerprints aren’t those of Jade. When Lamprey the Deceiver and her warriors appear, there is a battle and the group is rescued by princess Tekla and King Cryos. Jade is free and the heroes have saved the day.
- Lamprey possesses the body of Tekla and intends to crush the fragile Alliance by murdering its leader Graveheart. Her plan fails when she mentions details the real Tekla couldn’t know. She escapes inside Femur’s flagship heading back to Bone.
- Prince Pyrus and Lady Zera accidentally crash land on planet Remora, a dead world. They must escape Blokk and his millions of warriors.
- The Alliance stands against their greatest enemy. Remora unleashes even more of its offensive strike forces and damages the Ice and Fire battle fleets greatly. In the end, Jade and the Battle Moons rescue the day and it seems Remora is destroyed. However, the Beast Planet shows up and annihilates one of the Battle Moons.
- The Alliance travels to planet Bone but finds a surprise - the Beast planet is already there. Emperor Femur, an arrogant and egotistical leader, agreed to welcome both the Beast and the Alliance on his world. Lamprey the Deceiver and her agents convince the Bone Emperor to side with them and send on the run King Cryos, Graveheart, Jade and prince Pyrus. The young prince of Fire believes he can reason with Femur but is captured by Lamprey and her warriors. Eventually it is revealed that the field generator built on planet Bone will not protect the planet but will instead seal the entrance to any Alliance Battle Fleets. When betrayed, Femur rescues Prince Pyrus and creates a diversion allowing the Aurora to destroy the Field Generator giving their fleets the chance to swarm the invaders. Bone joins the Alliance. Back at their World Fortress, Lamprey tells Blokk and Voyd that she believes Tekla to be responsible for uniting the worlds.
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| abstract | - Shadow Raiders is set in a five-planet solar system known as the Cluster. The four habitable planets are in a constant state of war, always raiding one another for resources unique to each planet. However, when an alien named Tekla comes from another solar system, she brings a warning: the Beast Planet is coming. Now Graveheart, a humble miner of Planet Rock, must convince the leaders of Fire, Rock, Bone, and Ice to put aside their differences and stand together against the Beast, their new common enemy. The story begins as Tekla's homeworld of Planet Tek is consumed by the Beast Planet. She and her robotic companion, Voxx, escape to the Cluster through a Beast jump portal to warn them of the impending danger. Tekla is pursued by Beast drones and crash-lands on Planet Ice, where she is rescued by Graveheart. The drones subsequently attack and slaughter the combined forces of Rock and Ice in the area, leaving only Tekla, Graveheart, and Ice King Cryos. The threat convinces Cryos and Graveheart to form an alliance of the Cluster worlds against the Beast Planet. The first season revolves around the efforts of Graveheart, who has become the de facto leader of the Alliance, to convince the leaders of the other Cluster worlds to join the Alliance. The first planet they visit is his home planet, Planet Rock, but Lord Mantle stubbornly refuses to ally himself with the other worlds after Rock's Battle Moons repel a Beast attack. Graveheart's friend and captain of the Royal Guard, Jade, joins him to help rally planets Fire and Bone to his cause. Fire and Bone join the Alliance. The Beast forces are tracked to the dead world of Remora, converted into a fortress by the Beast drones. An attack by the combined forces of Ice, Fire, and Bone, with some timely intervention by Rock's Battle Moons, sees the destruction of Remora. However, this only serves to anger the Beast Planet, which emerges from within the Cluster's star and proves its superiority by destroying one of the Battle Moons with a single blast from halfway across the system. It then unleashes its wrath upon the nearest planet: Fire. The second season focuses on the Alliance's efforts to avoid the unstoppable Beast Planet. Each world in the Cluster is discovered to be equipped with "World Engines," massive drive systems which can propel the planets through space. Using these, the worlds of the Cluster flee the Beast; Fire's engine is damaged and the planet is thus sacrificed in a futile attempt to stop the Beast. Fire's population is moved to the remaining Battle Moons, now down to three following the battle to save Fire. On their journey, they discover Planet Sand, which joins the Alliance, and Planet Jungle, which the Alliance blows up when the Beast tries to consume it; this, too, proves useless. The plants of Jungle live on as a single cutting which is given to Emperor Femur of Bone. The finale introduces the Prison Planet, a teleport world used as a penal colony. Graveheart and Cryos are captured by a faction of convicts led by Jewelia, a devious woman who takes a liking to Graveheart. Femur and Jade are taken by a second faction commanded by Sternum, Femur's nobler brother, from whom Femur stole the throne of Planet Bone. Convinced that their friends have been slain by the other faction, the two pairs join the fight on the side of their respective faction until the truth is revealed. Meanwhile, Lord Mantle takes control of the Alliance by force, convinced that his forces are superior to the Beast. His arrogance nearly dooms the Alliance and costs Mantle his life when Blokk invades Rock and kills him in single combat. As the Beast Planet is about to consume Planet Rock, the Prison Planet teleports into its path. Graveheart and his group use Sternum's Telepod to travel to Rock. Sternum then teleports the Prison Planet out of the system, taking the Beast Planet with it. A final battle between Graveheart and Blokk results in Blokk's demise, Jade's rise to ruler of Planet Rock, and the Alliance's new era of peace. However, the story ends with a scene in a distant part of the galaxy, moments before the destruction of Planet Reptizar at the hands of the Beast Planet.
- An All CGI Cartoon from Mainframe Entertainment, makers of Re Boot. Shadow Raiders tells the story of a quartet of planets divided by war for generations as they band together to defend from The Beast. Princess Tekla, not just the last survivor of her kind but her solar system, flees along with the Beast armada to warn the people of planets Fire, Bone, Rock and Ice about the coming threat. In an Enemy Mine situation, Graveheart of planet Rock, King Cryos of Ice and Princess Tekla fight off her pursuers and band together. From there, the story chronicles the struggles to form an Alliance against the Beast; battling prejudice, hatred, and suicidal pigheadedness. And that's just among each other! The main cast includes:
* Graveheart -- "I'm just a miner." Not just a big hero, but also The Heart who keeps the warring temperaments of the Alliance to working together. Surprisingly humble, open, and level headed.
* Princess Tekla -- The brain of the group, she's sensitive and somewhat haunted by the death of her planet. She's a silver Robot Girl who is somewhat naive about who to trust, though she gets better about it.
* King Cryos -- The Stoic king of Ice, the personification of Reasonable Authority Figure. Also an incredibly Overprotective Dad to Lady Zera.
* Jade -- The Lancer to Graveheart, she's a proud warrior to Graveheart's humble miner. Distrustful and somewhat disdainful of others, undeservedly (at least when not talking about Femur).
* Prince Pyrus -- "I'm the Prince, I get to do what I want" Hot-Blooded child prince of Fire, he chafed under the role of leader but was often assertive and responsible. Despite his quote, he wasn't so much a brat as unchained by "tradition", especially when it was xenophobic. His trust in Femur was one of the things that helped the latter be somewhat less jerky.
* Femur -- The Token Evil Teammate, a greedy, slimy, cowardly, sexist, lecherous, vainglorious lizard who was not above selling out the Alliance. Would alternate being unexpectedly wise and suicidally dumb.
* Lady Zera -- The spitfire Tagalong Kid, and haughty princess of planet Ice.
* Zuma -- A late addition, a psychic woolly being who is wise and contemplative ... yeah, she got maybe two episodes tops, and not very deep ones either. With the enemy, you have three characters, which are technically (if not actually) part of The Beast Planet, a single organism.
* General Blokk -- Short tempered and violent. Prefers to deal with problems via brute force.
* General Lampray-- Manipulative and scheming. Takes a more subtle approach favouring deception and subterfuge.
* General Voyd-- The Voiceless. Remarkable for having a solid continuity between episodes and a lot of Character Development. Though it follows most animated show conventions regarding onscreen violence (no one is seen to die, those killed go up in a burst of light without any blood) it started becoming increasingly dark in its second season, with the destruction of several planets. There was going to be a third season, that was going to give some of the Beast background, but you know. There's also a dos game based on the toy line: 'War Planets: Age of Chaos'
* Abdicate the Throne: King Cryos does this at one point after becoming worried that he's letting personal priorities interfere with his duty.
* His successor later abdicates in favour of returning the throne to Cryos.
* A Child Shall Lead Them: Prince Pyrus.
* Action Girl: Jade. Emphasis on the "action."
* Aliens Speaking English: For some reason (possibly Precursor involvement), everyone, including aliens from different solar systems, all speak the same language.
* All CGI Cartoon
* Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: One of the reasons Jade, as an offworlder, is immediately suspected in the murder-mystery seventh episode. "We of Fire never kill our own!"
* Apocalypse How: the basis of the series. The Beast Planet is a Planet Eater, and its combination of ability to travel between galaxies and actively seeking out "prey" could bump it to a Class X-2 threat.
* Bar Brawl: When the girls have a night out, they have fun...
* The Baroness: General Lampray.
* Battle Couple: Official Couple Graveheart and Jade definitely qualify.
* Battle in the Center of the Mind: Tekla vs. Lampray.
* Beware the Nice Ones: Graveheart. Usually the compassionate and mild-mannered leader of the Alliance... but keep in mind that this is also the same man who snapped like a twig and took out most of Fire's aerial fleet by himself after his brother was killed right in front of him. In other words, not someone you want to piss off.
* BFG: The Sonic Cannons.
* The main batteries of Remora and the Beast Planet also qualify. Especially the latter, given that even one of those guns can destroy a planet from half a system away.
* Big Damn Heroes: Every Damn Episode
* Book Ends: "Planet X: On Doomsday".
* Bowdlerise: But not so much as to stop this series from being very adult at times.
* Breaking the Fourth Wall: Of all the characters the audience could be addressed by, it would be Femur.
* The Brute: General Blokk. Thick as one too, most of the time.
* Cain and Abel: Femur and Sternum.
* Catch Phrase: Graveheart's "I'm just a miner."
* Camp Gay: Pelvis.
* Cosmic Horror Story: Take a look at the impending doom and monstrous Planet Eater, then try to dispute this.
* Clip Show: The episode Graveheart has a crisis in his leadership role.
* Daddy's Girl: Zera. So much so that her dad abdicates the throne because he realises that she'll always come first, even over his duty.
* Darker and Edgier: The Prison Planet arc. Though the series was already fairly dark and edgy by 90's Saturday morning standards, the arc was considerably much grittier than the episodes that preceded it.
* Dead Little Brother: The clip show episode reveals that part of the reason why Graveheart is so humble is because his kid brother died in a raid on Planet Fire that Graveheart was leading.
* Debut Queue: One character per episode for the first five or so.
* Depraved Bisexual: Jewelia could be considered this. She spends most of her screentime hitting on Graveheart (and arguably Cryos) in the creepiest manner she can, and then does it to Jade when they finally duke it out in "The Long Road Home":
* Easily Forgiven: Femur, and depending on your viewpoint, Jade and Tekla.
* Eldritch Abomination: The unstoppable Beast Planet and its demonic extensions. It doesn't spread madness, but no matter what happens, nothing can harm it.
* Et Tu, Brute?: Jade gets mixed up in a particularly cruel case of betrayal, when the group's survival depends on a reluctant king. She ends up giving a valuable tool to the power hungry King of Rock to ensure his co-operation. Her position as his Captain of the Guard doesn't help, and when she chooses loyalty to her king, she ends up betraying her friends
* Evil Chancellor: Averted with the Vizier. Despite displaying outright contempt for the other members of the alliance, he admits that he does respect them. Played straight later on when an evil duplicate of him turns up.
* Eviler Than Thou
* Faceless Masses: Just about every soldier in the four planets. And they were the good guys!. Taken to its literal extreme by the Beast Planet, whose soldiers are actually called drones and are literally nothing but mindless extensions of the Beast Planet itself.
* Somewhat subverted in the second season, as you get to see the faces of a few troopers and the ones from Rock and Fire do indeed have unique faces. Played straight with Bone and Ice however, since the former never shows the common trooper without their "smart suits", and the latter all resemble their king down to the mandibles.
* Fantastic Racism: all of the races hate all of the other races, mainly due to the history of mutual raiding. This really causes trouble in the series, particularly when the people of Fire lose their planet and must emigrate to the moons of Rock. Comes with Fantastic Slurs as a matter of course.
* Five-Man Band
* The Hero: Graveheart
* The Lancer: Cryos/Jade
* The Smart Guy: Tekla
* The Big Guy: Jade
* Token Evil Teammate: Femur
* Fling a Light Into the Future: Princess Tekla
* Funetik Aksent: Both of the Beast 'generals' who can speak, with thick Russian or Eastern European accents.
* Gentleman Snarker: Cryos.
* Get It Over With
* Getting Crap Past the Radar: Sometimes they did not even bother with the radar: King Cryos actually says that Graveheart's companions damn him to death. He uses the word "damn!" When they at least acknowledged the radar they still had more blatant sexual innuendo than many prime-time shows of the time. In an early episode, Graveheart asks Jade if she "remember(s) that tunnel?" in a moment of high tension. Jade stares at him and wants to know how he can think of that now. In the second series, a slightly tipsy Jade tells Tekla that Graveheart came out of the tunnel "wearing nothing but a salute!" Either that was one hell of a game of truth or dare or the show's Official Couple were pretty wild back in the day...
* Jade once says "I'd rather nurse a beast drone".
* Girls Night Out Episode: In Girl's Night Out, the girls (And Pelvis, for whatever that means) head out to a bar and have fun...
* Hot Amazon: Jade is even called an Amazon, which is especially notable considering humanity has never even appeared in the show.
* Interspecies Romance: Femur has a real thing for women who are not from his planet. He hits on Lamprey in his introductory episode (until she reveals her true nature as his enemy), and then flirts with the "reactivated" Tekla up until it is revealed she is being possessed by Lamprey. His steadiest "crush" is Jade, blunt-spoken warrior-woman of Rock, whom he flirts with through the entire series. His brother also seems attracted to her when they meet in the final episodes, and there seems to be something between Graveheart and Tekla throughout the series. And then there is Pyrus and Zera, despite the complications of a fire/ice romance...
* I'm Not A Hero. I'm just a miner.
* Implacable Man: Er, Implacable Planet. The Beast Planet shrugs off everything in the series, including being hit with another planet!
* This, surprisingly, also goes for it's troops. Beast Drones, due to being composed of null matter, can and will shrug off all attacks made on them unless it hits the containment unit. It's also their way of psychologically attacking enemies, since rarely do their prey know where to hit, and fruitlessly aim at their stomachs and heads. Hilariously they turn into Glass Cannons if you know where to aim, since Zera once killed a drone by flinging rocks at it.
* Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Let's face it, the accuracy of the Beast Drones drops measurably when firing at heroes when compared to firing at the RedShirts. Unlike your typical kids cartoon though, a lot of those get atomized onscreen.
* Hilariously used in one episode. Whereas normal troopers will explode with their ship if it's even grazed by a Drone's attack, the heroes' ship (which is the exact same ship used by their mooks) survives two or three direct hits and the only thing knocked out was the engines.
* Improbable Aiming Skills: The heroes have an amazing knack for hitting the tiny containment unit of the Beast Drones when not using the heavy sonic cannons.
* Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Arguably Femur, almost certainly Sternum and Jade.
* The Juggernaut: While the heroes destroy the Beast Drones by truckloads, the Beast itself shrugs off all attempt to stop it, including ramming a planet into it, detonating a planet turned into a bomb inside it, and teleporting it to unknown parts of the universe. The last one only forces it to shift targets.
* Jumped At the Call: King Cryos. "You can count on Ice to be the first to stand at your side."
* Karma Houdini: Femur, who stole the Battle Moons and got a good many people killed while they stole them back, and then he turned and fled in the battle of Remora, actually calling Lamprey and begging for a deal to sell out the other members of The Alliance. Of course, his own people threatened revolt afterwards so he had to make amends or be executed by his own race, but he still ends the series as Emperor of Bone, even after his bigger, stronger and smarter brother returns from his forced exile.
* Then again, Femur did legitimately take the throne, according to the screwed up priorities of the planet.
* The Beast. The very last shot of the series is the Beast eating another planet, unimpeded and unopposed.
* Kill Sat: Planet Rock's Battle Moons. Emphasis on Satellite.
* Knight in Sour Armor: Jade. Buried underneath the cynicism and hair-trigger temper is a honorable woman who genuinely wants to protect people.
* Kuudere: Jade is a Type 2. Her "dere" side comes out most frequently around Graveheart, but as the series progresses we see her gradually warming up to other Alliance members as well.
* Lampshade Hanging: Apparently, Graveheart's "I'm just a miner annoys Jade even more than the audience. Femur has been known to do this as well.
* Market-Based Title: It was called "Shadow Raiders" in Canada because Canadian kid's TV shows can not have the word "war" in the title. For this reason, another Merchandise-Driven show by Mainframe was named "Beasties" in Canada...
* Merchandise-Driven: Based on "War Planets", a toy line of planetoids with various gadgets that popped out.
* Moment Killer: Femur's bad timing almost gets him throttled by Jade.
* Moral Guardians: Well, kind of. Girls' Night Out was not shown in the U.K. by Sky, supposedly due to strobe lighting, but attention has been drawn to the fact that GNO saw a lot of sexual innuendo and featured the female characters trashing a bar in a brawl. The problem is that a lot of later events do not make sense if you have not watched a key scene in this episode.
* Morality Pet: Pyrus seems to be something of this to Femur, as the otherwise amoral and treacherous ruler of Bone has a definite soft spot for the young prince of Fire. In a more literal fashion, the seedling of Planet Jungle that Femur is charged with tending could be seen this way.
* Never Accepted in His Hometown: Graveheart. Until the series final, that is.
* Never Say "Die": Averted all to hell and back. One episode, "J'Accuse," seems devoted to doing nothing but saying variations on the words murder, kill, and the titular die as often as possible. Fitting, considering it is about a murder case.
* No Flow in CGI
* No Sympathy: Empathy is not Jade's strong point...
* Official Couple: Graveheart and Jade, second season. Although it's not known what effect Jade's promotion to Queen of Planet Rock will have on things.
* Organic Technology: Planet Bone's ships and other things. Technically more "Cyborg Technology"- organic tech as a base, but supplemented with actual machines, like Femur's (ill-fitting) Powered Armour.
* Pet the Dog: Femur with the last remaining growth of Planet Jungle.
* Pigeonholed Voice Actor
* Planet Eater: The Beast
* Planetville: Amazingly averted with planet Sand. When the Sun People representative encountered the Alliance representatives, the guy assumed the new people were from some other province instead of being aliens.
* Precursors: The builders of the world engines. They seem to have been on every planet encountered by the main characters, and they might even have been more advanced than we believe with the teleportation engines of the prison planet, but who and what they are is still a mystery. Presumably the third season would have dealt with them, as it was intended to deal with the origin of the Beat, but now we will never know.
* Production Throwback: The show mirrors catch phrases from the other Mainframe produced shows. "By the Matrix..." and "Stay Frosty".
* Proud Warrior Race Guy: While the Bones respect treacherous ambition and Femur himself is something of a coward, the people of Bone love a good a fight and consider it quite dishonorable to flee one. What prompts Femur to try and patch things up with the Alliance is the fact that his own people started trying to kill him for fleeing the fight against the Beast Planet.
* Power of Trust
* Pursued Protagonist: Princess Tekla
* Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Miners, soldiers, royalty and refugees and do not like, trust or cooperate with each other? Of course they are the heroes.
* Redemption Equals Death: Vizier, to a degree. While never being evil or doing anything overtly bad, he'd maintained a hostile and suspicious attitude towards the alliance as a whole and its leaders in particular. After secretly watching them try and fail to save Planet Fire from the coming Beast and witnessing their distress upon realizing the hopelessness, he opts to remain on Planet Fire for its final moments while informing Pyrus that he'd been wrong.
* Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The reptilian representatives of the Alliance are treacherous, cowardly, disgusting, and fulfill the Token Evil Teammate quota. Their entire ruling class promotes backstabbing as a way of life. They even get a pretty vicious Take That, as the final victim of the the Beast is Planet Reptizar.
* Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: A lot. Distances and sizes are probably the most egregious. Well, it's a cartoon)
* Case in point: they've managed to get from one end of their system to the other in a matter of hours.
* Senseless Sacrifice: Planet Fire, Planet Jungle, and the Prison Planet.
* Serkis Folk
* Single Biome Planet: Each of the planets are defined by a single geographical type (Usually whatever their name is): Ice - ice, Rock - rocks, Fire - volcanoes, Bone - swamps, Jungle- jungles, Sand - sand. This is one of the few justified examples, as virtually all of the planets seen are artificial.
* Shout-Out: There are a number of scenes in the first season that heavily mirror sequences from Star Wars.
* Taking You with Me: When Planet Fire's World Engines fail, and it falls so far behind the rest of the Cluster that it will be inevitably devoured by the Beast, the Grand Vizier orders it evacuated. Then he deliberately turns it around and rams the Beast with Planet Fire.
* The self-destruct of Planet Jungle is also a variant of this, since its World Engines were inoperative and it was going to be eaten anyway.
* The Evil Prince: Femur had a brother whose throne he usurped and sent to the Prison Planet. Although he was Femur's exact opposite when we meet him (refined, noble, tall, and muscular), flashbacks indicate that he was having Femur disposed of but Femur managed to turn the tables.
* The Starscream: Pelvis, Femur's slightly smarter but equally cowardly Evil Chancellor. Constantly trying to invoke...
* You Kill It, You Bought It: "You snag the throne, you rule on Bone, the guy that dies is food for flies."
* Tsundere: Zera, who's pretty fiery for an ice maiden.
* Twist Ending: A really dark one, by the standards of a children's show. See Book Ends above.
* What Happened to the Mouse?: The show never clarified what happened to the Battle Moons and, more importantly, the remains of Planet Fire civilisation after the assault on the Beast Planet in Death of a King.
* Unstoppable Rage: Graveheart had an experience of this when his little brother was killed on planet fire.
* The Voiceless: General Voyd, who often acts as a tiebreaker between Generals Blokk and Lampray. Possibly the direct representation of the Beast's judgement.
* Wave Motion Gun: In the episode where Tekla and Graveheart try to persuade Lord Mantle to join their alliance, Vox plays a recording of the last stand of planet Water from Tekla's home solar system. The inhabitants of Planet Water turned their entire world into a wave motion gun to try and destroy the Beast. The result was less than impressive. The battle moons also use these as their main weapon.
* Of course, Lord Mantle was more than confident that planet Rock would do fine by itself and defeat the Beast with the use of the three remaining Battlemoons. Needless to say, when he betrays the Alliance to prove just that they don't even slow it down.
* Working Class Hero: As Graveheart often reminds us, he's just a miner, but he's a very capable leader. This instance of this trope isn't used to cast any disparagement on upper-class or educated people, though, as royalty like Prince Pyrus and King Cryos are shown to be just as heroic.
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