One Riot, One Ranger: Difference between revisions
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This trope is most often seen in [[First-Person Shooter]] video games, though it's sometimes often seen in movies and television shows. Basically, it goes like this: A huge threat has raised its evil head. This threat is a danger to the entire nation/planet/galactic empire, and has already done a lot of damage. However, the government doesn't do the obvious thing to fight this oncoming hazard (that is, rally the troops, send out the Marines, and use its full resources to destroy the threat once and for all). Rather, they send in one man.
Now, the man might be a highly trained [[Badass]], but he is [[Just One Man|still only one man]].<ref>(The ability to create clones or duplicates and summon monsters doesn't count)</ref>
And of course, it turns out to be the right decision in the end.
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Related to [[It's Up to You]] and [[The Only One]]. Can involve liberal [[Conservation of Ninjutsu]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Happened once in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]''. What reinforcement should the Mahora mages send against a force that easily defeated the Kyoto Magic Association and is about to release a [[Cosmic Horror|Demon God]]? Their [[Redshirt Army|entire mage reserve]], that would probably be too slow and too weak to make a difference, as well as leaving Mahora unguarded? [[Genre Savvy|No way]]. Send [[Person of Mass Destruction|Evangeline]] [[Sealed Badass in a Can|instead]].
* Similarly invoked at times in ''[[Hellsing]]''; [[Alucard]] is the most obvious example, but certainly not the only one. That series runneth over with [[Badass
** Points to Alucard for actually being a [[One-Man Army]]. {{spoiler|At full release of his [[Restraining Bolt]] system, Alucard can spawn an entire army consisting of EVERYONE HE'S EVER EATEN. Suffice to say, that's a lot of minions. And he could already fight hundreds of enemies, other freakishly powerful vampires, and reform from grotesque dismemberment and decapitation.}}
** Additionally, following a certain incident at the manor, {{spoiler|the Hellsing Organization loses most of its rank and file soldiers and resort to hiring mercenaries. The mercenaries are also wiped out to the last man by the end of the manga. Basically, if a character in this series isn't a complete [[Badass]], he's a [[Red Shirt]].}}
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* [[James Bond]]. He's regularly sent into situations the British government might more easily clean up by sending in a crack squad of SAS commandos. Somehow, despite the man-power shortage, he always ends up on top.
** Man-power shortage? This is James Bond! He's too-much man for the bad guys to handle!
** But Bond first has to investigate the situation, which is a task better suited to a spy. On several occasions he's backed up by an attack force for the [[Storming the Castle]]
* The first ''[[XXX]]'' movie is a perfect example. The US government knew where the terrorists were, knew who they were, and had a good idea what they were doing, but rather than send in several highly trained multi-man strike teams, they send in Vin Diesel.
** To be fair, the opening sequence was the government losing one of their highly-trained intelligence operatives to the bad guys, who had clearly [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|read their book]]. And sending in strike teams when they don't have any actual evidence, as such, leads to... complications.
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* In the ''[[Star Wars]]'' films, Jedi Knights are sent out alone (or, occasionally, with their apprentice) to handle whatever problem happens to be occurring at the time. Of course, if the Jedi in question aren't the main characters, [[Red Shirt|this is usually ineffective]].
* The ''[[Resident Evil]]'' movie ''Degeneration'' shows the government's wised up since the events of RE4. When the [[The Virus|T-Virus]] breaks out in an airport, who do they send in to rescue survivors trapped inside? A "Specialist" by the name of [[One-Man Army|Leon Kennedy]].
* In ''[[The Fifth Element]]'', [[Action Girl]] [[Overly Long Name|Leeloo Minai Lekarariba-Laminai-Tchai Ekbat De Sebat]] is all that stands between the Earth and its Doom. Of course, as far as the government of Earth is concerned, [[Badass|Korben Dallas]] is all that stands between Earth and its Doom, so this movie uses this trope ''twice''. Would that make it
** Nope! [[The Federation|The Federated Territories]] sends Korben Dallas, the [[Starfish Aliens|Mondoshawan]] sends Leeloo. They just turned out to be a [[Battle Couple]] [[Love At First Sight|At First Sight]].
* John Rambo in probably the entire film series.
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** Although this may also be the result of Remo being so top-secret that only the President gets to know that he exists, or at least originally being so.
** It's actually explained in the first book of the series. The secret organization CURE is allowed to lie, cheat, and steal, but not to kill. This is because the President is worried about creating an agency that could be a threat to the country. CURE finally persuades the President to agree to one man. When one CURE member laments that one man is not enough, the head of CURE replies that's all they are going to get, so he better be a [[Badass]]. Luckily for CURE, he is.
* [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[Warhammer
** Also used in one of the Last Chancers novels, where the titular team is sent in to destroy a hive city to contain a Genestealer outbreak. The "mass assault vs. single infiltration" justification is used explicitly.
** "Sir, why send only one Arbitrator?" "Trooper, there is only one riot."
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** In fact, there's a bit of backstory where the page quote is adapted to the (Araluen) Rangers, and the phrase is brought up several times.
* At the end of the fourth book in [[Leo Frankowski]]'s [[The Cross Time Engineer|Conrad Stargard]] series, ''The Flying Warlord'', Conrad suggests this trope. The actual reason he was there alone was [[Trapped in the Past|slightly different]].
* [[David Drake]]'s ''Northworld'' trilogy. The Consensus sent a fleet to investigate the '''disappearance''' of the newly colonized planet Northworld. The fleet vanished too, so they sent another one, and then a third when the second was
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* Sure, sure, they ''say'' "
== [[Video Games]] ==
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** The Arbiter is the Covenant's version of the trope. Because of the [[Proud Warrior Race|lack of honour]] involved, they tend to use it as a [[Uriah Gambit]].
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' is all about this trope. There's even a pretty well-supported in-game explanation for it, too. The Citadel Council can't send their battlefleet to stop [[The Dragon]] because it would spark a galaxy-wide war, so they hand the problem over to their [[One-Man Army]]. They don't even provide a ship and crew, the Alliance has to step in and give Shepard their new [[Super Prototype]] stealth frigate.
** All Spectres are One
** On the other hand, other than Shepard him/herself every Spectre encountered in the game was either actively working against the council or corrupt. The council gives them no oversight whatsoever, and would actively prefer ''not'' knowing what they're up to.
** Also, this is [[Deconstructed Trope|deconstructed]] and [[Subverted]]. No Spectre truly works alone. Shepard has an entire ship and crew at his command (including a team of six badasses who could ''each'' be a Spectre with a little more seasoning and [[Character Development]]), along with several independent weapons developers contracting to provide them with arms and armor. Saren, meanwhile, has built himself into a major corporate power player and has an army of mercenaries, asari commandos and geth at his command.
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* ''[[Free Space]]'' and its sequel were somewhat notable for making the protagonist just a wheel in the cog of the army machine, particularly toward the end of the sequel, where you don't really win anymore... you just hope to survive. It speaks volumes about this trope that the games were actually criticized for [[Pinball Protagonist|detaching the player from the plot]] this way; people want to be the Guy. [[I Wanna Be the Guy|Not that one]].
* In general, any FPS game will have this situation, either by design ("We're sending in Joe the [[Badass]]"), or by happenstance ("We're sending in a squad of marines, but they'll [[Redshirt Army|all be killed]] except for Joe the [[Badass]]").
* In many games, the player can respawn at the beginning of the level when they die. When the player is also a [[
* Mobius One from ''[[Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies]]'' had well proven his [[One-Man Army|One Man Air Force]] credentials, so in the Operation Katina of ''[[Ace Combat 5 The Unsung War]]'', when a resurgent Erusean military tries to attack, he alone (and AWACS SkyEye, but he never fires a shot and so doesn't count) is sent to fight them off.
* Lampshaded in ''[[Half-Life]] 2'' when Breen notes Gordon Freeman's tendency to plow through enemy forces like a weedwhacker. At the moment of his apparent defeat, he reveals he's aware that ''somebody'' wanted Gordon to be there, and to do what he did.
** Whether this trope actually applies is still an open question. Yes, the G-Man sent Gordon in alone to take down the Combine (presumably), but his perspective and resources are, well... ''unusual'', to say the least.
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* Commandos in ''[[Command & Conquer]]''. Made quite explicit in the [[FPS]] ''Renegade''.
* This fits Samus Aran of ''[[Metroid]]'' to a T. The first time is a subversion in that the Galactic federation already tried and failed a large scale attack, so in desperation sent a lone bounty hunter. After she utterly annihilated everything, standard procedure became, "Send Samus first."
** Not an exaggeration. In ''[[Metroid Prime]] 3'', the Federation is [[Genre Savvy]] enough to hold off its entire space armada while Samus forges ahead on her own twice: {{spoiler|The Space Pirate Homeworld first and then Phaaze immediately afterward}}. Even after the Federation's [[Took a Level
* ''[[Urban Chaos: Riot Response]]''. It's you, and, for the beginning mission, your superior. For the rest of the game, you get you, a riot shield, a gun, and if you're lucky, backup in the form of a beat cop, firefighter, or EMT.
** Sadly, the "backup" you're speaking of isn't backup. They're guys who you rescued and are escorting to a safe location, and until then, they support you.
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* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] III: Morrowind'', the protagonist is mandated by prophecy to become "Hortator", a warrior who goes into dangerous situations that no one else would dare to take on.
** Though it's left [[Shrug of God|ambiguous]] as to whether the plot was mandated by prophecy ''per se'': after all, the [[Player Character]] is sent in originally {{spoiler|by the Emperor, to act as a stepping-stone to Imperial relations with Morrowind}}. Also, the surfeit of failed predecessors suggests {{spoiler|Azura}} was throwing heroes at the wall to see what stuck.
* The backstory of ''[[Cave Story]]''. An [[Artifact of Doom]], granting its wearer insane magic powers, resides on an island bristling with dangerous wildlife. Several nations want this artifact, so they send entire squadrons of war robots to retrieve it and kill anything in the way. Meanwhile, some other, unknown party wants to prevent the artifact from falling into the wrong
* The ''[[Crusader: No Remorse|Crusader]]'' games have the Silencer sent in on missions it would normally take an entire team of rebels to pull off. He's not ''entirely'' alone, with fellow Rebels doing troubleshooting from the base or taking out security measures not reachable from the game map, but you get the impression if they hadn't sent him for the meat of the mission they'd have to send at least five or six guys. In the final mission of the first game, he's supposed to command a squad of rebels, but due to complications they don't show up. He of course pulls it off anyway.
* ''[[Vagrant Story]]'' - [[Badass|Riskbreaker Ashley Riot]]. "Reinforcements? I ''am'' the reinforcements."
* ''[[Dawn of War]] II''. The recruiting worlds of the Blood Ravens are under attack from a huge Ork horde. The defenders are Davian Thule, about 5 squads of [[Space Marine|SpaceMarines]] and 30 or so raw initiates. They need reinforcements. They get one guy. It's enough.
* The backstory for the ''[[Fallout]]'' games explains that [[Power Armor
** Likewise, the [[The Federation|NCR]] often takes a
*** And subverted too, exploring Vault 3 you run into a Ranger sent to kill the feinds there, after killing a few dozen sneaking in there he gets careless and suffers a leg wound form a trap, while he still gets out fine (able his leg needed to be treated) but its stated sending him alone was a bad ideal.
*** Of course, the ranger sent into Vault 3 was simply a standard NCR Ranger, who are tough but generally serve the purpose of being the Redshirts of the Ranger corps. The Veteran Rangers wear a [[Badass Longcoat]] for a reason: They're the elite of the elite.
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** Makes a bit more sense when you think about the fact that the Texas Rangers are more like a state-level FBI rather than a state-wide police department (in Texas, that'd be the Highway Patrol). They're not supposed to send in a whole big force. They do the investigating and coordinating with different police departments, and when they need a whole bunch of manpower, they get it from the Highway Patrol or local police and sheriff's departments.
** Interestingly though, as the other wiki's article details, in the actual trope-naming incident it was pretty well averted, with other Texas Ranger captains '''and''' the Adjutant General present, though many of them may have come originally with the intention of being spectators at the bout, not keeping the peace when it was stopped.
**It was subverted often enough. The original Rangers were conceived as a backstop to the militia in a state where militia was not enough [[Everything Is Big in Texas|for geographical reasons.]] They were in fact in conception not unlike [[Badass Israeli|the Palmach]] during the Mandate days in the Middle East. They remained on constant patrols and conducted retaliatory strikes that were far more brutal than folklore likes to remember. They had plenty of badasses and were even surprisingly advanced in military technology for such an out of the way place, taking up the revolver earlier than the Federal cavalry. But they worked as a team like sane people when they could. It was not true that one [[Bandito]] gang or Commanche warband only needed one Ranger.
* The Mounties (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) have a similar reputation. Their original name was the Northwest Mounted Police, and they were given responsibility of just about everything north and west of Ontario. When the Yukon gold rush occurred, the NWMP made sure is was the most orderly and civilized gold rush ever seen, especially when contrasted against the California gold rush a few decades before. The Mounties today service as the federal police investigation branch (similar to the FBI), and are considered polite, professional, elite, dedicated, and ''fearsome if crossed''.
* Commando raids were conceived with this trope in mind (although they usually involve a team rather than literally using one "ranger"); send in a small force to go in quietly, carry out a specific objective (e.g. sabotage, assassination, rescue a person of importance, gather intelligence, etc) and then leave ([[Suicide Mission|optional]]).
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[[Category:Cops and Detectives]]
[[Category:Badass]]
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