One Riot, One Ranger: Difference between revisions
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Related to [[It's Up to You]] and [[The Only One]]. Can involve liberal [[Conservation of Ninjutsu]].
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== [[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]].
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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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* ''[[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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** 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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