History Main / ElitesAreMoreGlamorous

** And ''ComicBook/{{Crossed}}'', where both British and American Special Forces, just like the rest of the rapidly crumbling world militaries, can do nothing at all to halt the [[HatePlague Crossed virus]] which is spreading across the world but try to mitigate the damage while they still have the resources to do so.

* ''Literature/KingsOfTheWyld'': Unlike most settings, mercenaries are considered elite forces who earn glory and fame by protecting people from monsters. It's explained that part of the reason for this is because there hasn't been a large scale human-vs-human war in decades, so the normal army units don't have much to do besides parade and guard things. Mercenaries, on the other hand, are constantly testing themselves against monsters, so one mercenary is easily a match for a dozen normal soldiers.

** [[SuperSoldier Space Marines]] are a whole separate [[BadassArmy army of elites]] who get the most emphasis from Creator/GamesWorkshop and [[SpotlightStealingSquad steal the spotlight]] in-universe from the rank-and-file Imperial Guard.
** The Imperial Guard themselves have their own elites with stormtroopers, the best of the best who're often requisitioned by Inquisitors who need a lot of firepower. The grunts tend to think of them as overrated ("chocolate soldiers" is one term). Even rank-and-file Imperial Guard regiments are "elite" compared to Planetary Defence Forces, who get almost no focus at all and generally only exist to get slaughtered until the Imperial Guard show up.

--> 99.9% need not apply.

--> The few. The proud. The Marines.

* ''Literature/TheBlackCompany'' starts their story in hard times, doing a unprofitable assignment for the Syndic of Beryl and the Black Company itself reduced to being a force of thieves, rapists and fugitives. But every so often the company historian will dig through their annals and recite about their origins - how they were one of the 12 legendary Free Companies of Khatovar and can reclaim their gloried heritage.

* Creator/FrankHerbert's ''Literature/{{Dune}}: Baron Harkonnen is initially skeptical of Thufir Hawat's deduction that the Padishah Emperor secretly recruits his EliteArmy, the Sardaukar, from his PenalColony planet Salusa Secundus - after all, hardened convicts may be vicious fighters, but no sane man could expect loyalty from such recruits. Hawat explains that the Sardaukar have been indoctrinated with the myth that their hellish upbringing on Salusa Secundus has helped forge them into the best of the best, and they owe the Emperor everything for helping them fulfill that destiny. He also suggests that a similar myth could be used to create an even better fighting force from Arrakis's Fremen population, even by the Harkonnens who have so brutally oppressed them.

** Humanity: The N7 special forces, which represent the very best of the best of the [[TheFederation Systems Alliance military.]] The N7 are just the highest tier of soldiers who have completed every level of [[TrainingFromHell Interplanetary Combatives Training]], which is so grueling and intense that even soldiers who wash out at the first level (N1) are greatly respected by their comrades for simply being ''selected'' in the first place. Shepard is also an N7 Naval Special Warfare officer [[OneManArmy in addition to]] being a Spectre. Other graduates of the N7 program include [[MentorArchetype Shepard's commanding officer David Anderson]] and [[TheHeavy Kai Leng]].

** While not a Council race, Krogan Battlemasters are generally treated as the most dangerous people in the galaxy, being extremely powerful biotics from a species of walking tanks. The only one we see, teammate Urdnot Wrex, mentions that he once had a week-long battle with an Asari commando that ended when they ''blew up the station they were on''. The commando also survived.
** Your teammates also demonstrate this, especially in ''2'' -- a retired member of the Salarian elite force who inspired the Spectres, one of the galaxy's most talented assassins, a tank-bred perfect [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy krogan]], an asari with 400 years' experience as [[KnightErrant a Justicar]], one of humanity's most powerful biotics, and one of Cerberus's most trusted Operatives are all recruitable, and most of them are inescapable. Justified because unlike the first game, where your squad is pretty much scrounged together from whoever's most willing to tag along, you're specifically recruiting the most badass team you can to deal with a major enemy.
** The multiplayer mode in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' centers around a squad of elite operatives with access to abilities and equipment comparable to Shepard's. The Illusive Man's [[TheDragon Dragon]] Kai Leng was, like Shepard, an N7 operative.
* The ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' series has one of its major characters Big Boss be a career veteran of the United States Military who was involved in various Special Forces. He served as a Green Beret for 10 years until he was recruited by the CIA to be part of a fictional group known as FOX. Later on he served in Vietnam doing the CIA's top secret black ops working such groups as MAC-V SOG and the Navy Seals. According to the fiction of the universe Big Boss was also the man that helped found the Delta Force and his own personal black ops organization under his command called FOXHOUND, a successor to FOX.

* ''Noblemen 1896'' from ''Foursaken Media'' justifies this in game. America lost 70% of its population to plague. So when civil war breaks out, your military couldn't outfit everyone, so the wealthy landowners and the nobility had to buy their own equipment for combat. There's also a unit known as the Elite who start out kitted with the best money can buy, meanwhile Prisoners just get a plank of wood to fight with.

** In the original ''Operation Flashpoint'', you play as four different people. One is an SF operator, yes, and playing as him involves frankly hair-raising crawls through enemy camps to sabotage tanks, and so forth. But the others are: a Pilot, flying a variety of missions which though important are nothing elite; a tank commander on the front line; and an infantryman in the thick of the fighting as part of a large unit with no special tasking or characteristics. So a massive aversion for the most part here.

** ''ARMA III'' again [[AvertedTrope averts]] this trope, you play Ben Kerry, a common infantryman from an almost-disbanded NATO task force in the small Mediterranean island of Altis, that finds himself in a middle of an hostile invasion and has to survive. ''ARMA III'' also [[SubvertedTrope subverts]] this trope as the local special forces group, the CTRG, are portrayed as very shady, untrustworthy,[[spoiler: using and betraying both your NATO task force and the local allied guerilla group, the FIA and are revealed to actually have caused the invasion that you are trying to survive in the first place.]]

* ''Film/Godzilla2014'': [[Characters/MonsterVerseFamilies Lieutenant Ford Brody]] is an Explosive Ordinance Disposal specialist, and on top of being the main human protagonist of the movie, he's insanely UnluckilyLucky with his constant {{Kaiju}} encounters whereas all the other soldiers – including a specialist bomb-transporting team who have less experience than Ford – die like burning flies.

* ''Film/ThePredator'': Dutch and his entire team. We're never told what their unit or service branch are. However, they're considered so skilled that their CIA handler was willing to lie to them about the nature of the mission he was recruiting them for, feeling that they were the only unit good enough to handle it.

* Largely played straight in ''Series/StargateSG1''. While Stargate Command isn't manned by any existing special forces groups, its SG-teams are largely portrayed as those kinds of units. This includes an extremely extensive skillset (with the teams being constructed to have strong scientific, cultural, and archaeological skills as well as the usual combat skills), and a somewhat looser relationship with the chain of command (with a significant amount of leeway from command authority as well as civilians and even aliens serving on these teams if their skills or knowledge justify it). SG-1 itself is considered the flagship team of Stargate Command, the best among these elite groups. Within it, Jack O'Neill is himself a career veteran of Air Force Special Ops (with references made to numerous past missions in trouble spots like East Germany, Iran, and Iraq), while Teal'c is the former leader of Apophis' armies (which, in a society where AsskickingEqualsAuthority, means he was the best fighter in the entire army).

* UsefulNotes/{{Israel}}'s security forces are particularly fond of this, Because of the broad operational scope and pace of the IDF and police forces, almost every combat unit has it's dedicated special operations capable unit that recieves the latest equipment. Sayeret(recon) has evolved to mean an elite unit in IDF nomenclature and thus evokes this trope.
** The IDF has the Tzanchanim Brigade (Army paratroopers) which has its own sayeret, sayeret Tzanchanim, regular infantry brigades' Sayeret units, the Oz Bridage (Army Special Forces and it's subordinate Units 212 Maglan -commandos-, 217 Duvdevan -a special Mista'arvim unit who disguise as locals- and 621 Egoz -counter guerillas-), Special Fire Regiment 214 (Artillery commandos), the Armoured Corp's various Palsars(recon battalions), Yahalom (combat engineers special operations), Multidimensional "ghost" Unit (combined arms special operations) Shayetet 13 (Navy commando Flotilla), and the Air Force in general and the Air Force's Shaldag Squadron 5150 in particular.

** Even in situations where the ''Enterprise'' is neither the flagship nor the most technically-superior ship in the fleet, it has always the best crew by far.
** Deconstructed on the ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' episode "Valiant" which centers around the "Red Squad" elite cadets of Starfleet Academy. Red Squad's belief that they are the best of the best in Starfleet leads them to massively overestimate their own capabilities and causes them to try and take on a Dominion Warship ''by themselves'' [[spoiler: which ends with their deaths.]] At the end of the day, an elite cadet is still just a cadet.

->''"The [[RedshirtArmy Imperial Guard]]. It's a thankless job, but if you're willing to stand your ground and give it your all... you just might be able to buy enough time for the [[SuperSoldier Space Marines]] to take all the credit."''

* The main character of ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic'' is part of the Special Response Team, a special forces branch of Mithril, itself an elite worldwide military anti-terrorist [[PrivateMilitaryContractors PMC]] organization armed with [[BiggerStick advanced technologies and weapon systems]] superior to that of any national armed forces.

* The Strikers from ''LightNovel/WorldBreakAriaOfCurseForAHolySwordsman'' are this. They've collectively killed more metaphysical monsters than the regular military.

** The police has Yasam, a quick response riot control unit, and the it's border police branch has the Yamas, Yamas, another Mista'arvim unit directly subordinate to Shin Bet (Isreali equivalent to FBI) and Yamam special counter terror unit.

** Speaking of the Navy, they had commandos dating back as far as UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, who were involved in underwater demolitions and deep sea recovery. Then came the UsefulNotes/NavySeals, then the Navy Special Warfare Development Group, then SEAL Team Six. Today, anything Navy or special forces related would, odds are, center on Team Six.

** In ''VideoGame/Halo2'', you also play as the Arbiter, a member of the Covenant species colloquially called "Elites" for their prowess in battle (all of them are physically a match for the aforementioned Spartan-[=IIs=]). He is deployed alongside the Covenant's own special forces on various {{Suicide Mission}}s to atone for not being able to stop the Chief in the first game, and he happens to be the former Supreme Commander of a massive fleet who earned his position through AsskickingEqualsAuthority.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' does this in-universe with a fictional elite unit, [=SOLDIER=], that are highly respected and feared by everyone. Being a member of [=SOLDIER=] is seen as cool -- in one particular scene, it's established that [=SOLDIERs=] are expected to spend a lot of time striking poses and demanding admirers. Cloud was dead set on becoming a member and [[spoiler: didn't, but between medical experimentation, magic, and self-delusion managed to convince others he was one, anyway]].

* ''VideoGame/ESWAT'' really emphasizes this. In the game, you are just a lowly beat cop named Duke Oda who has to first defeat 3 bosses with nothing more than your standard police sidearm. Once you do that, you are then accepted into the ranks of the elite ESWAT team where Duke is outfitted in a suit of PoweredArmor that has a [[ShoulderCannon shoulder launcher]] and a machine gun ArmCannon.

* The SAS, still considered to be some of the best (if not ''the'' best) Special Forces on the planet and undoubtedly the most glamorous (and most mysterious, because very little is actually known about them, and they prefer it that way -- which rather adds to the glamour) regiment in the British Army. Consideration for entrance requires at least three years of good service in another regiment, then taking part in the absurdly gruelling 'Selection'. The Hill phase, only the very beginning, has ''[[TheSpartanWay killed]]'' trainees in the past, and only 15-20% candidates remain after undergoing it. And these are young professional soldiers in tip-top condition. Then follows the jungle phase (the same, but in a jungle), the combat survival exercise including a week-long 'escape and evasion', and finally, a 36 hour 'resistance to interrogation' test, [[ColdBloodedTorture which is exactly what it sounds like.]] All those who survive this absurdly brutal process are apparently rewarded with operational deployments.

** The Parachute regiment, meanwhile, is invitation only. Paras wear maroon berets with highly distinctive badges worn conspicuously far to the sides of their faces. It is somewhat less glamorous, however, thanks to a nasty reputation earned by the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre, to the point that they're sometimes considered the TokenEvilTeamMate of the British Army. In reality, they're usually no better or worse than the rest of the army (morally speaking, that is -- in terms of their actual competence, they're the next best thing to the SAS, and a significant chunk of the SAS is composed of ex Paras).
* The Brigade of Gurkhas, respected and feared around the world. [[note]] During the Falklands War, the Argentine conscript armies fought against the Royal Marines and other British regiments. When they faced the Gurkhas, they just ran or surrendered. One Gurkha fought and killed ''30'' Taliban fighters, beating the last one to death with a machine gun tripod. Another Gurkha on leave, armed only with his Kukri knife, took on 40 train robbers, killed several, wounded others and sent the rest running for their lives. You do ''not'' fuck with these guys. [[/note]] Tens of thousands of Nepalis apply to join the regiment and obsessively train to meet its selection criteria, partly because of this reputation and partly because Nepal is an extremely poor country and even the below average wage (c. £18,000 per year) for a private is a great deal of money in that part of the world.

** Finnish Air Force [[AcePilot top ace]], Ilmari Juutilainen (94 victories) was a Mustang. He had served as an airplane mechanic as conscript, and volunteered in the flight school after his first tour of duty. He had excellent understanding of various airplanes in theory and practice, what they could do and what they couldn't, and how to maximize one's own assets and minimize those of the enemy. He never was shot down nor did he ever lose a wingman. He scored two kills on Fokker D.XXI, 36 on Brewster 239 and 62 on Messerschmitt Bf 109.

* During World War II the so-called "Chindits" were British special forces who performed operations of great heroism and derring-do and were widely publicized... But they suffered such heavy casualties and were so expensive to supply and train that their effectiveness was questionable. The Chindits spent 1942 and 43 playing hide-and-seek behind the Japanese lines in Burma to little effect. Slim took over the 14th Army in late 1943 and turned the entire force into highly mobile light infantry. Over the next two years he kicked the Japanese entirely out of Burma; his key tactic was to let his units be surrounded and rely on airdropped supplies to outlast the enemy offensives. He taught the 14th not to rely on conventional supply lines and make frequent offensive patrols -- he refused to let his men think the Japanese were superior jungle fighters. In 1945 Slim's army was, man for man, the toughest fighting force in the world.

** ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'' averts this with the ''USS Ceritios'' as the main ship, which specializes in lower risk missions like second contact and routine diplomacy. However the ''USS Vancouver'' is featured as one of the standard high profile ships, and the engineering officer is on the verge of a nervous breakdown as a result, hoping to transfer to a lower risk ship like the ''Ceritios''. One recent mission involved the ''Vancouver'' crew traveling back in time to kill the person worse than Hitler.