The Only One Discussion - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Only One Discussion

(moved from Only One Discussion on 14-Aug-2008)

Sci Vo: "The Only One" would make much more sense. I can't believe that it was originally created as "Only One", and I can't believe that someone would deliberately change it to that later. Logically, it must've been gremlins.

HeartBurn Kid: Yes, but around here, we hate the word "the".

Sci Vo: Yes, and we (and by "we" I mean "I") hate acronyms, but I don't go around changing them all willy-nilly, because sometimes they're actually appropriate. "Only One" and "The Only One" have different meanings, and right now, the name doesn't match the trope.

Big T: Your argument might have more impact if you explained the difference in meanings. We've kept some with The at the beginning, if we can find a reason. Also, your comparison falls flat, since there is no indication that this article was ever called by another name, and especially that it was changed "willy-nilly".

Eric DVH: What the dinglebears!? How does Stargate SG 1 fall into this trope? Sure the S.G.C. is short on manpower compared with the rest of our military (and, of course, those of its numerous interstellar foes), but SG-1 seems about as effective as any other unit of the S.G.C. (or even its allies, such as the To'kra and Free Jaffa). About the only way this trope might fit is the way how a few thousand puny Taurii seem to be the only catalyst capable of bringing three or four whole stagnant galaxies worth of aons-old evil empires to heel in a matter of years.

Big T: Isn't it amazing how, if you ramble on long enough, you'll answer your own question? Obviously, it is humanity itself that functions as the Only Ones in Stargate SG-1. It took the Tau'ri to do what no one else could. We beat the Goa'uld and the Ori, something more advanced aliens including our Neglectful Precursors never figured out how to do.

Kizor: Could someone with the attention span please trim this down to an actual, one-*-only example instead of a discussion and put it back in?

Video Games

In Mass Effect, despite the supposed presence of a galactic force of super-police, not to mention an advanced human military force as well as several superior alien surveillance and enforcement agencies, only Commander Shepard is able to uncover and confront the The Dragon and the Big Bad.
- To be fair, Commander Shepard is the only member of the super-police who's also part of the advanced military force, and he's got a spiffy prototype ship to boot. He really is the only one qualified.
  - Confirmed. Shepard is specifically mentioned as the single best-qualified candidate to be found among the entire human race - if he hadn't been, they'd have sent the someone else who was. And at the beginning of the game, the Terran Alliance was both the first spacefaring polity to have its agents encounter the menace, and the only one that actually believed in the full scope of the oncoming horror, so the other Council races pretty much dumped the entire case on them.
- This is also a semi-subversion in that, in this case, Commander Shepard is not only the guy who's actually handling the job- he's also, for once, the one who's supposed to be. In fact, by the endgame where the military might of four species finally comes into play, they all follow his orders because the whole case is officially his show.
- It's still done for a lot of sidequests, when you arrive in a new system only to learn that you're the only one in the area of a crisis or mystery.
  - Worst is one where you're called from halfway across the galaxy to take care of something on Earth's moon. Apparently, not a single person exists on Earth's huge megacities that can shoot a few drones.
  - On the other hand, Shepard is the only person available to the Alliance packing the Citadel Council's personal 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card, which makes him so very useful for running cover-up missions.
  - The Codex does say the the human armed forces makes up only 3% of the total population (compare to 60%+ of the turians), and most of human space doesn't have any fleets guarding it

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