Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right/Playing With
Basic Trope: A person listens and does what their heart tells them is the morally right thing to do and not what bureaucratic laws tell them to.
- Straight: Captain Adam and the rest of Alpha Squadron decide to defy direct orders to remain at their posts in order to stop Warlord Bob and his band of Space Pirates from pillaging the colony.
- Exaggerated: Captain Adam and the rest of Alpha Squadron decide to defy a suggestion by an idiotic superior who has no idea what's going on to remain at their posts when Warlord Bob and his band of Space Pirates are clearly headed towards the top-secret science outpost that is studying the local Negative Space Wedgie when intercepted radio signals indicate that they plan to storm the base and capture the Kill Sat being developed there.
- Justified: It's Alpha Squadron's job to protect colonies from pirate attacks. Their superiors are completely corrupt and have been accepting bribes from Warlord Bob to look the other way.
- Inverted: Alpha Squadron decides to obey orders to stay at the base instead of taking a bribe to leave it from the baddies.
- Subverted: Alpha Squadron ignores orders to stay at base to hunt down Warlord Bob... until they get ordered to stop right now or face pay getting docked, at which point they go back to base...
- Double Subverted: ...until the slaughter starts, when they go and attack Warlord Bob.
- Parodied: Captain Adam and the rest of Alpha Squadron decide to defy direct orders to remain at their posts in order to stop Warlord Bob and his band of Space Pirates from jaywalking.
- Deconstructed: It turns out that the direct orders were given for a very good reason: Although the pirate attack was successfully repelled and hundreds were spared, it allowed enemy terrorists to slip past the post Alpha Squadron had abandoned. The total fatalities they caused would later number in the millions. Alpha Squadron is court-martialed and imprisoned as a result...
- Reconstructed: ...however, the weapon developed at the attacked station is later used to defend from an extra-planar attack, and the entire universe is saved. They are then released and hailed as heroes...
- Zig Zagged: Until the terrorists bring him back and destroy it again, or they would except Captain Bill and Beta Squadron kills them, only to be obliterated along with an entire solar system when the dead-switch bomb owned by the terrorist leader goes off, except it turns out that the systemw as only ever inhabited by warring terrorist factions anyway, and Captain Bill had teleported out in time.
- Averted: Captain Adam and Alpha Squadron follow their orders without question.
- Enforced: The creators want to send a message that it's OK to not to what you're told as long as it's all for the greater good.
- Lampshaded: "Hey, Captain Adam, why exactly do our bosses keep telling us to ignore the pirate attacks?"
- Invoked: "I won't sit here why people die! I don't care about the rules!"
- Defied: "Hey, we might be court-martialed if we go. Besides, Beta Squadron'll get them.
- Discussed: See Lampshaded.
- Conversed:
- Played For Laughs: Alpha Squadron was created for the sole purpose of defying orders to remain at their posts to stop something.
- Played For Drama: Their superiors catch them in the act. Alpha Squadron has to wait out the battle. Which is bad, since they were one of the best combat squadrons of the colony.