39,327
edits
Redshirt Army: Difference between revisions
m
Mass update links
m (Remove useless categories) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 20:
Often precedes [[Lowered Monster Difficulty]].
See Also: [[A
'''Note for Tropers''': [[Redshirt Army]] specifically deals with easily-killed ''good guys''. If you're looking for easily-killed ''bad guys'', go to [[Mooks]].
{{examples
== Anime and Manga ==
* The Marines of [[One Piece]], despite antagonizing the protagonists, who ''are'' pirates, are full of people who legitimately want to make the world a safer place, [[Knight Templar]] [[Well
* [[The Federation]] forces in the original ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'' had the GMs, mass-produced mecha whose sole purpose was to die in droves against the [[Monster of the Week|latest Zeon special forces mechas of the week]]. They even had red chestplates.
** Not quite accurate. [[Informed Ability|Stats-wise]], they were superior to all the Zeon regular suits but they couldn't stand up to [[The Rival|Char's]] [[Law of Chromatic Superiority|Gelgoog]], [[Eleventh Hour Superpower|Zeong]], or [[Anti
* The whole of the Earth Sphere Federation forces in [[Gundam 00 a Wakening of The Trailblazer (Film)|Gundam 00 a Wakening of The Trailblazer]]. In their defense, they ''were'' outnumbered 10,000-to-1. Nobody's going to do particularly well with those odds.
* The regular UN forces in ''[[Macross 7]]'' and later ''[[Macross Frontier]]'' (who were, in both cases, mostly flying outdated [[Humongous Mecha]], and had limited, if any, combat experience; this is even a plot point in ''Frontier'' and is used to explain the existence of the [[Private Military Contractors]]).
Line 48:
* The Japanese military and UN forces fill this role in an episode of ''[[Pretty Sammy|Magical Project S]]'', where they can't stand up to [[The Power of Love]] fueled housewives.
* They may not wear red, but the generic Combat Mages of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' have a tendency to get mowed down whenever they encounter the current villain's main forces. They're pretty good at keeping [[Mecha-Mooks]] at bay though, and they were able to contain the [[Amazon Brigade|Wolkenritter]] until their [[Mysterious Protector]] appeared.
** In their defense, the main villains of the series are way out of their league. They're essentially cops, and you expect them to be able to take on an insane and insanely powerful mage (albeit with a bit of an [[Informed Ability]]), [[One
* The Magical Teachers and Students in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' during the Mahora Fair arc were woefully unprepared for the fight... so Negi cons the entire student body into making a second [[Redshirt Army]] for this fight.
* ''[[The Tower of Druaga (Anime)|The Tower of Druaga]]'' has the Army of Uruk and some miscellaneous Climber parties perform a bit better than the rest of the examples of this page, but they're still not as good as the heroes. Season 2 introduces the Golden Knights, who are completely worthless against anyone with a modicum of fighting experience.
Line 124:
== Game Books ==
* [[Lone Wolf]]'s mission in Book 4 {{spoiler|at first}} is to discover the fate of a hundred strong unit of cavalry led by Captain D'Val. Lone Wolf sets off with a force of fifty Rangers; the medieval equivalent of Special Forces. True to the trope, regardless of whatever decisions the player makes, the entire force is either forced to return home, ends up missing, or killed in increasingly unlikely ways (e.g. bandit ambushes, falling through floorboards in a mine, eaten by a giant squid, eaten by a giant worm, eaten by giant cats, falling into a ''pit trap''). [[Averted Trope]] with the actual cavalry Lone Wolf was sent to find. During the book's climax battle they live up to their reputation as fine soldiers and rout their numerically superior foe. Lone Wolf's involvement in that battle isn't actually that significant (no [[One
** If anyone is wondering why the pit trap death is silly, it was located {{spoiler|in the middle of a corridor, activated when Lone Wolf unlocks the door at the end}}. If its purpose was to keep an intruder from opening the door, it's the most poorly designed trap ''ever''.
*** It was very obviously designed to kill anyone ''accompanying'' an intruder opening the door.
Line 131:
== Literature ==
* In Eric Flint's ''[[Belisarius Series]]'' series Rana Sanga comments on the battle described in the ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita Bhagavad Gita]'', how it is the most famous battle in all of Indian history and how no one remembers even one of the names of the mere mortals who did all the dying.
* The battle in the next-to-the-last ''[[Animorphs (Literature)|Animorphs]]'' book involves a [[Redshirt Army]] who survives. The US army launches a military force consisting, essentially, of hundreds of soldiers accompanied by a couple dozen [[Sixth Ranger|Sixth Rangers]]. And this military force's goal is a suicide mission worthy of the best of them: to launch an attack, in plain view, against a spaceship that "could blow asteroids out of the sky." Ordinarily a [[Sixth Ranger]] ranks much higher on the [[Sorting Algorithm of Mortality]] than the [[Redshirt Army]]. But in this case, Visser One orders the Sixth Rangers killed first, because he takes them more seriously in both a strategic and a [[
* The Martian army in [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s ''[[The Sirens of Titan]]'' are deliberately constructed to be utterly wiped out on the moment of contact, in order that the course of human society can be changed by making them feel guilty for slaughtering the poor bastards.
* Subverted and used in ''[[Old Mans War]]'' by [[John Scalzi]]. Subverted because the military arms its soldiers with the most advanced weaponry around, gives them telepathic links to each other and their guns and trains them to be incredibly effective soldiers. Used because the universe is just that damn dangerous and 75% of them don't last more than 5 years anyway.
Line 203:
* ''[[Mega Man ZX]]'' has another group of these, the Guardians. They do much better than the resistance, but when Serpent sends his forces to take out the Guardian airship, it's up to Vent/Aile to bail them out...Then again, all they did was destroy an air-ship and fight off the [[Psycho for Hire]]. The Guardians did most of the work defending their own ship, it seems.
** The Hunters in the sequel get special note for ''averting'' the trope. In fact, they get a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] at the beginning of the game for surviving against the resident [[Psycho for Hire]], and ''stole the Biometal out from under his nose''.
* This is also common in [[First
** In the original ''[[Doom]]'', the protagonist's entire military unit is wiped out before the game starts (the protagonist then blasts his way through a demon-filled complex that bested an entire unit of elite soldiers).
*** You find their corpses all the way through hell though, so it's obvious some of them managed to progress (and they probably reduced the number of enemies you face...). I'd say they were quite badass, just not badass enough.
Line 219:
*** The AI in "Red Faction: Guerrilla" isn't much better. Guerrillas last longer than they did in the first game, eventually get weapons on par with the {{spoiler|EDF}}, and are smart enough to use cover, but are not nearly as efficient as the enemy, who will swarm you with loads of soldiers and gun your ass down before you can even blink.
* In the ''[[Resistance]]'' series, the soldiers are often treated as red shirt, killed in scripted events for the introduction of new Chimera enemies, killed in other scripted events, though it is possible to save a few from a few scripted events where you could still move.
** In R:FOM's case, they were more than Redshirts, seeing that you are the only survivor out of the [[
* In ''[[First Encounter Assault Recon|F.E.A.R.]]'', the protagonist is supplemented (twice) with Delta Force squads, who are very quickly killed (twice). The first group of three are slain by Alma near the very start of the game, and the second group of two are instantly shot to death by Replica soldiers as the helicopter carrying them to the Armacham building lands.
* ''[[Marathon (Video Game)|Marathon]]'' had the Born on Boards, (Bob, for short) that were the very definition of this trope, existing only to die horribly (by the player or by the Pfhor, it really doesn't matter) while shouting "They're everywhere!" The second game actually gives them pistols; however, they are still more or less useless save for a single prison break operation that amounts to their [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]]. Lord knows they deserved it!
Line 278:
* A damn near literal example in ''[[Fable|Fable III]]'': When you're {{spoiler|fighting against Logan's army in the (first) Battle of Bowerstone, the guys on your side that aren't named are an army of guards wearing red shirts. They don't have names. They're just there to shoot the purple-coated guards and get killed.}}
* While NPCs have varying degrees of effectiveness in [[Dragon Age]]: Origins, the cutscene where the Warden encounters the Archdemon atop Fort Drakon plays this trope straight, as a company of soliders is fighting the dragon just as you appear on the scene. The dragon quickly disposes of them all, leaving you to face it alone (barring any troops you may summon).
** Much of ''Origins'' plot revolves around the player trying to gather forces to replace the [[Redshirt Army]] lost at Ostagar after Loghain's betrayal handed victory to the Darkspawn. Whether or not they would have won had Loghain played his part is debatable -While [[Glory Hound|King Cailan]] was sure they could win, Loghain thought defeat was so certain it was better to cut his losses and escape with his army intact. [[The Obi
* In ''[[LA Noire]]'', you are frequently aided in shootouts by uniformed LAPD officers. While your plainclothes partners are invulnerable, the unis are not, and will often be gunned down in the first 30 seconds.
* In ''[[Making History]] II'', militia units have just as many soldiers as regular military divisions, but are ''extremely'' weak, and will get massacred by the thousands against well-trained and equipped armies.
| |||