Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday

Awakened from centuries long sleep in the 25th Century, Buck Rogers becomes an ancient military hero and symbol of earlier times. As he is brought up to date, he decides to join the New Earth Organization (NEO), to fight for his home planet.

Once he had fought in the cold war, a pilot sent into outer space to destroy a Russian weapons platform. He was successful, but his success destroyed the planet, as nuclear war was launched, and you went into a centuries long cryogenic sleep, abandoned by the people who could not retrieve you. In the centuries that he slept, Earth colonized the solar system. There are large groups of people on Mars, Venus and Saturn. The colonies once existed to bring resources back to an Earth that had problems sustaining itself.

But the intervening centuries brought a power shift. Now Earth is at the Mercy of the interstellar alliance RAM - formerly the Russian-American Mercantile, but now the superpower, based on asteroids surrounding the planet Mercury. Mercury exploits the Earth for resources, at the expense of Earth's population. Earth has fallen into barbarism, except for one small light - the New Earth Organization (NEO).

These "rebels" consider themselves freedom-fighters, and they are fighting for Earth's freedom from the interstellar powers. Call it patriotism, if you will, but Buck joins them - the only person alive who can remember when Earth was supreme and healthy.