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Cleaning up this galaxy, one plastic criminal at a time.

"From the freshest Konstabel to the most respected Oberst, Patrol officers are a true band of brothers. Theirs is a lonely duty, served far from home and family. But someone must guard the hearthfires."
GURPS Traveller, Sword Worlds

Quite simply, an organization of peacekeepers in outer space.

This is not the same as a Starfleet-style fleet of ships. For one, those usually exist for the purposes of exploration and/or war; for another, Space Police tend to work in small groups and have a certain jurisdiction. In other words, it's much like the difference between the real police and the military.

Where they get that jurisdiction from, though, is often different. They're more likely to be part of a huge, galaxy-spanning organization, and are often more of an elite force than just regular policemen. They may not even answer to the government. They might even have superpowers or gadgetry that is more advanced than that of Earth.

Adding to the aforementioned "elite force" feel, they may have some kind of exclusive technology that can only be manufactured in limited amounts, or an ability that only certain individuals can use.

Sometimes, the space police is introduced to the plot unexpectedly, especially if it takes place on a planet that is yet to discover other space-faring civilizations (read: Present Day Earth). In this case, the space police, while preferring to not interfere with local affairs, intervenes as a sudden external force in matters that they deem to have interplanetary if not interstellar consequences. In addition, in the typical Super Hero universe, they are the ones who can take powerful alien criminals into custody after they are defeated without upsetting the status quo by Earth having to deal with such criminals.

Also see Space Cadet, Super Cop, Time Police, and Superheroes in Space. For the military equivalent, see Space Marine. Also, Space Pirates are likely to be among the criminals that Space Cops pursue. Captain Space, Defender of Earth! can be a parody of this trope.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Part of the series premise of Birdy the Mighty is that the title character is an intergalactic police officer.
  • Many of the earlier Brave Series' Humongous Mecha belonged to some kind of space police force.
  • The Intra-Solar System Police (ISSP) from Cowboy Bebop is basically an extension of Interpol extended to the entire solar system. Much like Interpol, they technically have jurisdiction everywhere, but cannot exercise that jurisdiction without permission from the sovereign governments or local police forces. This generally means that bounty hunters like the crew of the Bebop are called upon to catch those that slip through the cracks and bring them to ISSP custody.
  • The Universe Patrol Squad in Doraemon. They also have a Time Police division.
  • Haruko from FLCL claims to be a member of some interstellar peacekeeping organization apparently looking for someone, but it's doubtful any agency would approve of her other activities.
  • The Galaxy Police in the Tenchi Muyo! series. They've got their jurisdiction from the Galaxy Union. It's a loose alliance of the most influential nations around, mainly humans (in the form of a couple of rival empires) and wau — a race of large anthropomorphic felines. It should be noted that the Galaxy Police are also the galactic Postal Service as well. In fact, it's their main source of income.
  • Unified Public Security Agency, Ryouko's organization, in Kemeko Deluxe is similar to TSAB.
  • The Time-Space Administration Bureau (TSAB) plays this role in Lyrical Nanoha, unexpectedly intervening in Nanoha and Fate's clash in the first season and becoming regulars (and their employers) later.
  • The Planetary Defense Organization from Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!, with the title character being assigned to Earth to prevent illegal exports of entertainment media. She later remarks that they sometimes get backup from the Land of Light.
  • Planetes has the Orbital Security Agency (OSA). It is a fairly realistic take on how an actual real-life space police could function.
  • The title characters from Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs.
  • Sgt. Frog: The Keronians readily conquer worlds, but are still beholden to some kind of intergalactic authority enforced by space cops. The ones we see are Poyon and Poyan, two humanoid aliens with antenna, who have a Portal Network at their disposal.
  • The Galaxy Patrol of Space Adventure Cobra (ineffectively) opposes the Pirate Guild and enforces laws against drug smuggling, kidnapping, etc. Agent Dominique Royal occasionally recruits Cobra to take down Guild operations.
  • The Space Patrol in Space Patrol Luluco. All the main characters work for the Ogikubo Branch (a city on Earth where humans and aliens live together).
  • The Galactic Patrol in Space Pirate Mito.
  • The Galactic Patrol that appears in some of Akira Toriyama's mangas like Sachi-chan Guu!! Jiya, Jaco the Galactic Patrolman and Dragon Ball Super.
    • Akira Toriyama has written about the Galactic Patrol before in Sachie-chan Guu!! and Jiya.
    • One of the fighters in the Tournament of Power is Catopesra, a police warrior from Universe 3.
    • The Galactic Patrol Prisoner saga of Dragon Ball: Super has Goku and Vegeta temporarily joining the Galactic Patrol.

    Comic Books 
  • In Astro City, G.A.L.A.K.T.I.K. is an alien law-enforcement group that arrests and incarcerates interstellar criminals. They resemble The Greys wearing black suits.
  • Subverted in Marvel's Darkhawk. We have a group of intergalactic super-beings with the same costume and powers, which is usually the case with this trope when it applies to comics. It's subverted in that, instead of cops, they're actually Space Pirates.
  • The Darkstars were also formed to pick up the slack when the GLC disbanded, and included a number of former Lanterns in their ranks, but their ranks slowly dwindled and the last remaining members gave their lives in a fight against an evil Physical God called Starbreaker. Their name and equipment have since been appropriated by the zombie-like servants of another evil space-deity, Lady Styx.
  • Femforce: Stormy Tempest is an Interplanetary Police Officer sent from the 26th century to the present to prevent a corrupt system from taking over planets.
  • From DC Comics, the Green Lantern Corps, though they're more spread-out than most, with only one Lantern for many star systems; additionally, they're independent of any government, being run by Sufficiently Advanced Aliens and their mighty power rings pack an incredibly versatile punch.
    • It's been suggested that the Corps were based on the Lensmen, but the creators denied having read the stories. Later writers, however, included shout-outs such as Green Lanterns named Arisia and Eddore, after the Godlike alien empires of the Lensman novels.
    • The revamped post-Rebirth Corps now has two Lanterns per sector, who are even referred to as police-style back-up. Earth actually has four Lanterns, but only two (Formerly Jordan and Stewart, now Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz) operate in Sector 2814, while the others (Gardner and Rayner) are specialists based out of Oa.
    • The GLC is also unusual (at least by comic book standards) in how far they take the law enforcement metaphor, having things like badges, allotments of vacation days, and specialized departments like the Alpha Lanterns who are an Internal Affairs department within the Corps. They've also been seen investigating crime like real-life detectives rather than just blasting bad guys through walls.
    • Their limited number is partly justified by the fact that they tend to assist local law enforcement where feasible (eg. if Hal Jordan runs into a human supervillain, even one of his own enemies, they are more likely to be thrown in an Earth jail than an Oan one); there may be other superheroes in the area (e.g. Earth again, which has the Justice League, of which Hal is a member, and many others) who at the very least can act as support, or outright allies; and because sci-fi writers do have a sense of scale as the majority of star systems will likely have only one inhabitable planet, if any at all, and many won't even want or need a GL, assuming they've reached a level of technological advancement that would make one feasible in the first place. In many respects they are more like an intergalactic Interpol than a real police force, 'cept more proactive.
    • Their limited number is also justified by the fact that the Emotion Spectrum is a finite power source. Keeping the number of active Lanterns relatively low helps to delay the Dimming as long as possible.
  • The current Guardians of the Galaxy has two amongst its rank:
    • Star-Lord. Apparently there's only one Star-Lord, rather than a full police force. The post is currently held by Peter Quill, although the "Master of the Sun" who apparently bestows the title wanted it to go to one of Quill's colleagues at NASA.
    • Rocket Raccoon was a space cop as well before helping form the current Guardians.
  • Hawkman has the Thanagarian Wingmen (originally called the Hawk-Police). Green Arrow often calls the Silver Age Hawks "alien cops".
  • Another organization from The DCU, a modern-era precursor to the Legion of Super-Heroes called L.E.G.I.O.N. (Licensed Extra-Governmental Interstellar Operatives Network), was founded to fill the gap left by the Green Lantern Corps after they disbanded for a short time in the late '80s. They're about halfway between a police force and a mercenary outfit, and bump heads with the Green Lanterns fairly often. They've also twice been taken over by villains (in the later issues of their regular book, and in a current miniseries), leading to the good guys becoming R.E.B.E.L.S..
  • In the Legion of Super-Heroes comics, there were the Science Police, who wavered from allies to antagonists between adaptations.
  • The Martian Manhunter/J'onn J'onnz. He was a manhunter (high-ranking police officer) on Mars and his superhero career can be seen as a continuation of his duties on a larger scale.
  • The Mighty Thor: King Thor, a potential future version of the God of Thunder, is destined to at some point be a "god-cop" for Omnipotence City's Ministry of Inter-Deity Justice, who goes around "Sun Precinct Prime" handling deities going against universal laws.
  • The protagonist of the Missile Mouse comics works for the Galactic Security Agency.
  • The ''Nova Corps of the Marvel universe, with each member being called Nova. The most famous two are Rick Rider and Sam Alexander.
  • Rick Random: Space Detective was created in the 1950's by Edward Holmes, who realized the growing popularity of sci-fi after Sputnik, but was stuck editing a detective comic. The British comic hero worked for the Interplanetary Bureau of Investigation, investigating mysteries and battling Space Pirates, Mad Scientists and other such villains.
  • The 1990s Trinity miniseries (not to be confused with the more recent titles about Clark, Bruce and Diana) was essentially the G.L.C., L.E.G.I.O.N., and Darkstars in a jurisdiction dispute.
  • Wonder Woman (1942): Long before the Lantern Corps. made their debut Wonder Woman and the Holliday Girls had a run in with the Golden Policewomen, who were part of a coalition to stop any universal oppressors. After a bit of miscomunication where the policewomen thought Wondy was allied with a group of green skinned fellows who were going around murdering the populations of other planets the two groups worked together to defeat the atomic weapon using villains and Diana gave them a formula for a green tinged spray that would work as a defense against such dangerous radiation.

    Fan Works 
  • Dul'krah, Clan Korekh, the security chief of the USS Bajor in Bait and Switch and related fics, used to be part of the Ver Eshalakh, his species' military police. According to an Infodump he gives in The Headhunt his species, which is heavily clan-based, considers the agency to be a clan unto itself that keeps the peace between the other clans.
  • Kevin Rubio's TROOPS is a dual parody of Star Wars and COPS.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • The Finders in Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe.
  • Gort and Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). In a twist, Gort (the robot) turns out to be the officer, and Human Alien Klaatu is his assistant. In the short story on which the movie is based, Farewell to the Master, Klaatu is only an artificial construct created to make it possible for Gort to communicate with humans.
  • The Nova Corps from Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).
  • The Hidden: The good body-snatching alien (who poses as an FBI agent for most of the film) eventually reveals himself to be an extra-terrestrial police officer who has been pursuing the rampaging evil bodysnatcher across several planets after it killed his partner.
  • The Men in Black, though they are not in space as such and stay on Earth.
  • Sean Connery's character in Outland is a literal example: a US Marshal posted to a mining outpost on one of Jupiter's moons.
  • The bounty hunter in Pitch Black leads the other crash-survivors to believe that he's a law-enforcement agent, although it's unclear whether he's pretending to be Space Police, or an officer of a planetary police force that sent him up to retrieve a fugitive.
  • Space Cop is about a space cop named Space Cop who comes from the future... the future of space.
  • Star Wars: Jedi Knights tend to have policing the galaxy as one of their regular duties, along with acting as ambassadors to political disputes and ridding the galaxy of the Sith.

    Literature 
  • The Agent of Vega series features assorted 'Galactic Agents', space-going Lone Rangers with super-cybernized spaceships as their faithful 'Silvers'. The Agents work for the Third Co-ordinator of the Vegan Confederacy and have no respect whatsoever for the Alien Non-Interference Clause.
  • Area 51: Artad was leader of a Kortad detachment (the Airlia police) who came on a space ship to arrest Aspasia, Earth's commander, as he had gone rogue, disobeying orders from their government. Both of them were cut off from the wider Airlia and fought a millennia-long war with each other, throughout which the Kortad on Earth remained loyal to Artad.
  • In "The Beacon to Elsewhere" by James H. Schmitz, the Interstellar Police Authority play a similar role, but their jurisdiction also extends to Earth and other planets.
  • The narrator of the short story "The Black Sheep of Vaerlosi" by Desmond Warzel is a space customs agent.
  • In James H. Schmitz's standalone story "The Custodians", the System Police maintain order in the Solar System, but have no jurisdiction over Earth itself, which is riven by "miniwars".
  • Fighting Fantasy: In The Rings of Kether, you play a Space DEA Agent investigating a leak in shipment of Space Drugs.
  • The Galactic Police in Fortunately, the Milk.
  • Jack Vance's Gaean Reach stories used the Interworld Police Coordination Company. It started as a private firm to exchange information about criminals between planetary jurisdictions, but eventually grew to a level of authority where a senior IPCC representative felt himself justified in summarily executing several corrupt local cops.
  • The Space Patrol in several of Robert A. Heinlein's short stories (and one novel, Space Cadet).
  • Honor Harrington:
    • The Manticoran and Andermani navies serve as this in Silesian Confederacy space, enforcing the anti-piracy and anti-slavery laws that the Silesian navy is too weak, corrupt or ineffective (which one is the case depends on the exact system in question) to enforce on their own.
    • Per House of Steel, the Grayson Space Navy began as the Grayson Space Guard, serving as a sort of orbital Coast Guard with little actual military capability, at least until the Civil War started by the Faithful. Given that one of the Faithful's first moves in the war was to attack the orbital infrastructure with surface-to-space missiles, it surprised nobody to learn that the GSG decided to support the Moderate faction instead. Arguably, they began the transition from Space Police to Space Navy when they developed the capability to deploy Kinetic Strikes.
    • In later books, the Solarian Office of Frontier Security and the Gendarme fill this role on paper, but the are far too corrupt (along with the rest of the Solarian League) to serve as anything but imperialistic thugs.
    • The Manticore Ascendant series gives us the Manticoran Patrol and Rescue Service, another Coast Guard analogue, which finds itself in an Interservice Rivalry with the Royal Manticoran Navy due to in-fighting between factions of Manticore's government. While their duties mostly involve search and rescue and similar missions, they do end up taking a more active role in the defense of the Manticore System as the threat of Space Pirates increases.
  • The Galactic Patrol in the Lensman novels, especially the Lensmen themselves, though it's more militaristic than most examples of this trope.
  • Harry Harrison's "The Man from P.I.G." describes the challenges of space policing: every linear increase in humanity's spacefaring range means a cubic increase in the region of space to be patrolled. For one remote planet, this means that their sole law enforcement presence is a Bunny-Ears Lawyer hillbilly with a herd of genetically engineered swine for backup.
  • Mark Delewen and the Space Pirates has Mark encountering a Space Patrolman on the trail of a group of space pirates.
  • In Nation of the Third Eye by K.K. Savage, two of the protagonists initially work in the Astro Police Department that operates from the dwarf planet Ceres. It is the main hub of the space mining activities in the asteroid belt that often involve sabotage or even deadly attacks by rival companies.
  • Andre Norton:
    • The Patrol in many of her science fiction stories.
    • In her The Time Traders series, there's speculation that the alien "Baldies" are this — at one point, the heroes wonder whether a video they found is the record of an actual case or the equivalent of a television "cop show."
  • The Panoply in Alastair Reynolds' The Prefect. They have habitat busting weapons, and high tech weaponry. However, they are severely limited in their jurisdiction; they can only enforce a person's right to vote and have a connection to the equivalent of the Internet. They have to petition the habitats to be allowed to use their weaponry, and they cannot interfere with the Ultras, who control the interstellar ships.
  • The Monitor Corps from James White's Sector General series. Paramilitary police with Cool Ships, to be sure, but at the end of they day they're still Gardai in space, and proud of it. (The Etlan War, for example, is described as a particularly widespread riot in Monitor Corps official documentation, and nobody ever uses lethal force. Ever.)
  • The eponymous organisation in the Spaceforce (2012) novels, which does pretty much what it says on the tin - a space police corps with jurisdiction over crimes that take place in space, or on space stations or anywhere else that isn't actually a planet.
  • The Special Corps from The Stainless Steel Rat consist of former criminals who have been caught and are now used to catch other, more dangerous criminals or combat galaxy-spanning threats. They can call on military and government resources (usually by posing as powerful government officials with the help of forged documents). Their leader Inskipp (once a notorious criminal himself) is incensed to discover there's another secret and even more powerful organization, the Morality Corps (which enforces the moral code of humanity), and then yet another group: the Time Corps (which protects the timeline).
  • Star Wars:
    • In the X-Wing Series, part of Star Wars Legends, one of the pilots was on the Corellian Security Force, essentially the police of the Corellian system. Corellia's Jedi tended to work pretty closely with them. Some Jedi were even partners with CSF officers. Largely the CSF stayed within the system. The Jedi had a saying - "There is no luck, only the Force", and the CSF liked to modify it to tell criminals who chalked up being caught to bad luck - "There is no luck, only the Corellian Security Force".
    • Tarkin details how the title character started in the Outland Regions Security Force, the militia policing the Greater Seswenna, and later transferred to the Judicial Forces that (in theory) operate in the entire Galactic Republic. His stint in the ORSF is notable for how he managed to capture the previously unbeatable pirate queen Qa'nah and put her and her crew into a container into a slowly decaying orbit over a sun while broadcasting their plight and shooting down anyone who tried to rescue them, starting his habit of using terrifying shows of power to scare criminals and rebels into submission that would culminate with the Death Star.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Babylon 5: By the end of the fourth season, the Rangers have begun to fill this role, helping to keep the peace between the different members of the League of Nonaligned Worlds and later the Interstellar Alliance. Notably, Sheridan can't even get the League races to agree to this arrangement without convincing them their borders are being threatened by a new undetectable enemy, and the first time war looms between Alliance members (with the Centauri, puppeted by the Drakh, launching disguised attacks on the others), the Rangers prove too thinly stretched to be able to stop both sides from shooting. However, as Delenn says, the purpose of the Rangers is more to create the peace than to enforce the peace. Most of their direct engagements are with Raiders or Always Chaotic Evil groups like the Drakh, and if a world is being victimized or planning a war of conquest against their neighbours, the Rangers make sure the whole galaxy knows about it.
  • Doctor Who.
    • The Judoon are a Law Enforcement, Inc. version, though the Doctor derides them as "intergalactic thugs".
    • "The Daleks' Master Plan" features the Space Security Service or "SSS": a military force whose purpose was to gather intelligence on behalf of the Solar System and when necessary, eliminate threats to that safety.
    • 25th century Earth's Adjudication Bureau get mentioned in "Colony in Space" (although the supposed Adjudicator in that story is actually the Master), and go on to play a major role in the Doctor Who New Adventures (where it's still around in the 30th).
    • In "The Time Warrior", the Third Doctor describes the Time Lords:
    And my people are very keen to stamp out unlicensed time travel. You can look upon them as galactic ticket inspectors, if you like.
  • Farscape's Peacekeepers were initially created to act as a neutral peacekeeping force by powerful aliens in the far distant past. A planetary ruler can hire the Peacekeepers to protect their planet, but they can also hire them to enforce their will on their own people. So the Peacekeepers run an empire by proxy, while ostensibly protecting everyone.
  • The Firefly 'verse has two versions of this: the Federal Marshals ("Feds") and the Interplanetary Police ("Interpol"). The RPG sourcebook goes into more detail than the show had time to. Interpol concentrates on tracking suspects and investigating crimes (e.g. the Alliance cruiser Dortmunder alerts them to Serenity's illegal salvage operation in the pilot), while the Feds enforce Alliance national laws and pursue criminals across interplanetary borders (they're the cops hunting Simon and River).
  • The first three shows in the Metal Heroes franchise, known as the Space Sheriff trilogy, which is arguably the most recognised part of the franchise, especially the original Space Sheriff Gavan series.
  • The robotic "Space Filth" in Red Dwarf ("filth" is a derogatory name for police in the UK).
  • Parodied in the third season of Slings & Arrows, where Ellen's new job is on a show where she plays a hard edged cop... IN SPAAAACE!
  • Space Precinct was a reworking of a pilot Gerry Anderson had produced about ten years before hand called Space Police, the title was changed upon learning that Lego had a toyline called Space Police. The series didn't have a lot to do with this trope anyway, aside from the title; it was a fairly standard cop show With TACKED-ON CYBERPUNK ELEMENTS!
  • The series Space Rangers. The premise was a 'Texas Rangers' type organization operating in space.
  • Star Cops was short-lived British 'hard' sci-fi series about the International Space Police Force — nicknamed the "Star Cops" — who provide law enforcement for the newly developing colonies of the Solar System.
  • Star Trek: The Original Series: Starfleet Security is shown explicitly performing roles akin to those of the FBI and US Marshals. Starfleet as a whole is also mentioned to broadly fill the role of law enforcement within space.
  • Super Sentai/Power Rangers:
    • Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger are a Super Sentai version, right down to lightbars in their helmets. Also applies to the Western version Power Rangers S.P.D.
    • Gekisou Sentai Carranger: Signalman is a space cop from the planet Polis that tends to butt heads with the Carrangers due to his headstrong personality and the fact he views the Carrangers as vigilantes. His western counterpart in Power Rangers Turbo is drastically different. While he is still a space cop, he is also a time traveler who comes from a completely different time period, and unlike in Super Sentai, he actually gets along with the rangers.
  • In the Ultra Series, the Space Garrison that the titular heroes belong to fits the bill with the addition that all of the organization's members are armored giants that mostly deal with rampaging kaiju and their evil extraterrestrial masters.

    Radio 
  • Shooty and Bang-Bang in The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy 1978, who are in pursuit of Zaphod for stealing the Heart of Gold. They're not the sort of cops who enjoy gratuitously shooting people, although they do so anyway.
  • The 1952 radio show Space Patrol features a futuristic police force that keeps the solar system safe from planet-hopping criminals (and, in the pilot, a space/time anomaly).

    Tabletop Games 
  • Star Law in TSR's Star Frontiers game and the later d20 Modern system.
  • In the GURPS Traveller volume "Sword Worlds", the Confederation Patrol is described as sort of an interstellar coast guard for the Sword Worlds Confederation. It handles interstellar fugitives, pursues pirates and smugglers and conducts espionage and counterespionage.
    • The IISS though mostly an exploration and intelligence service has units with police powers in the Imperium. Notable among these is the S3 which is kind of a "space SWAT".
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • The Inquisition is an exceedingly dark variation of this trope, given that they're basically the Spanish Inquisition IN SPACE!
    • The Adeptus Arbites, on the other hand, are closer to the standard understanding of what police can and must do, although they're still noticeably darker than usual and have more limited jurisdiction — that is, they enforce only general Imperial laws, of which there are few, leaving most to the local police. In short, they are FBI IN SPACE, with a healthy dose of Judge Dredd Shout-Out.
    • Commissars in the Imperial Guard have the primary role of political officers, but actually spend most of their time acting as a combination military police and disciplinary board, since troopers tend to spend more time travelling and getting in drunken fights with local than actually in combat. Despite being normally attached to a specific regiment or spaceship, they have the authority to do pretty much anything to anyone if they decide it's in the interests of the Imperium's security.

    Toys 
  • The page image is of one of the smallest sets from the 2009 reboot of LEGO Space Police, three LEGO lines of various ages devoted to this trope. In the first two runs their enemies were humans, the Blacktron faction of LEGO Space, but the 2009 reboot had aliens as the enemy and nothing but.

    Video Games 
  • In Adventure: The Inside Job, the protagonist Thalia James was to be a space police officer... that is, until the video game she starred in got cancelled. After that, she became a police officer in the world of video games.
  • Alien: Isolation: Jethro Walts, who works for an organisation called the US Colonial Marshalls and seems to have a similar job description to Sean Connery's character in Outland. Notably he appears to be one of the few people on Sevastopol Station who isn't answerable to its corporate owners and can even overrule them where matters of federal law or public safety are concerned, which is just as well because Seegson screw over their employees as badly if not worse through carelessness then Weyland-Yutani did the crew of the Nostromo with malice aforethought.
  • In Armored Police Unit Gallop, you play as a Space Police with R-11B Peace Maker, an aircraft which fires homing laser beam, the said craft makes a return in R-Type Final.
  • Given the state things are with every space travel capable race flocking to the last remaining star of the universe, the militaristic Space Marine Peacekeepers from Battleborn also basically function to some degree as law enforcers of the last solar system.
  • Dyna Gear: You assume the role of a space policeman named Roger, who's pursuing a super-criminal, Gustaf, before both of you crash-lands on a hostile planet where dinosaurs still exist. You spend the whole game battling dinosaurs while pursuing Gustaf.
  • EVE Online:
    • The CONCORD Assembly is an independent body formed by consent of the four empires. They use their own powerful proprietary technology to keep order in secure systems. Their jurisdiction is limited however, leaving most of the galaxy lawless and rather dangerous.
    • Some corporations and vigilantes attempt to enforce their own brand of justice outside Concord-secured space, as well. Given that non-secured space is one of the most brutal free-for-alls in all of video game history, the actual effectiveness of their efforts is debatable.
    • With the release of the Police Pursuit Comet (a Gallente frigate with police paint and blue and red lights), some players are quite literally policing the borders. Quite often, it's done with a snippet of Permaband's HTFU playing on repeat in the background.
  • EXTRAPOWER: Galaxystar, an officially US-sanctioned superhero who operates in Earth and Space. His activities have made him friends with the people of the Shakun Star and he was once involved in imprisoning Astro Gather in a black hole.
  • The video game Freelancer ups the ante not only by featuring the aptly named Liberty Police, Inc. and Bretonia Police, but also by featuring the Liberty Security Force, kinda like the Space FBI. Oh, and notice how the Liberty Police is a private security company!
  • In Infinity: The Quest for Earth they exist to provide safe areas called "cores".
  • The Keyblade wielders from Kingdom Hearts qualify as their job is to keep other worlds safe from threats such as The Heartless, Nobodies, The Unversed, and Organization XIII while attempting to maintain the status quo of the worlds although they do fight any evil villains in those worlds as well. Although some Keyblade wielders become corrupted by the powers of darkness and abuse it, there are some Keyblade wielders who side on the light to keep darkness at bay. What makes them count is that the universe of the series does not really have planets and they are replaced with worlds that are either based on Disney films, only have a single town, or are completely infested with the threats of darkness as used as a base of operations by the antagonists. Outside of these worlds is just a dimension that is very similar to outer space and wielders are required to travel from world to world through use of a Gummi ship or through their ability to transform their Keyblades into vehicles.
  • In Magical Starsign, there really IS a "Space Police" in this game, but they are almost completely controlled by the head villain of the game. Plus, the officers tend to prefer paperwork over, well, real work, and are usually pushovers in battle (or in one case, living stools for one of the bosses).
  • Mass Effect:
    • The Spectres are the Citadel "Special Tactics and Reconnaissance," given special rights by the Citadel Council that places them above the law and allows them to take whatever measures are necessary to ensure galactic peace. They very much subscribe to the One Riot, One Ranger philosophy, as the Citadel sending a Spectre to deal with a situation is the final option before outright declaring war and sending an entire fleet after the offending party.
    • Citadel Security Services, or C-Sec, also qualifies, being responsible for policing the Citadel itself and Citadel space.
    • In a more broad sense, each species tend to be on their own for providing for their own security within their systems, often contracting the services of various agencies running the gamut from Law Enforcement, Inc. to outright Private Military Contractors. For the Earth Systems Alliance, the Alliance Navy serves the role of Space Police whenever the situation warrants (usually against slavers or Space Pirates).
    • The Proud Warrior Race Guy turians tend to act as this for the galactic community at large. The majority of C-Sec officers and Spectres are turian, making up over 50% of the total police force. Additionally they have the largest fleet of warships in the galaxy, making them the official peacekeepers of Citadel space. In fact, their First Contact War with humanity was the result of them responding to humans illegally activating a mass relay and Poor Communication Kills.
  • Metroid has this with the "Galactic Federation Police." The original game's manual specified that the Federation government created the organization to battle the threat to interstellar shipping posed by Space Pirates, and it was mentioned again in the Metroid II: Return of Samus instruction manual. After that, it seemed like it had been retconned out of existence when the Metroid Prime Trilogy games seemingly replaced it with the Galactic Federation Marine Corps until Metroid: Samus Returns specifically mentioned the Police again in its intro. The line between Police and military seems to be thin, as it is mentioned that the Police have worked with the Federation Army jointly (in Metroid: Zero Mission's manual) and both Metroid II and Samus Returns call the Police's operatives "soldiers" (which may make them more akin to a gendarmerie as opposed to traditional civilian police). Series heroine Samus Aran was established to have had a previous service history with the Police as an elite operative in both the early Captain N: The Game Master comic series and then again in the manga prequel before she eventually quit the service and became an independent bounty hunter.
  • Shooting at Space Stations and starships in No Man's Sky is a surefire way to get these launched and hawking on you. Destroying them gives you Units, but affects their standing with you on your (unseen) Alliance Meter, making them more likely to shoot at you on sight later.
  • The title of Policenauts refers to a group of five Earth-based policemen who were chosen to uphold law and order in the space colony Beyond Coast. They are succeeded by the Beyond Coast Police Department, which functions like a regular police department, although the actual law enforcement in the colony is carried out by the Advance Police unit, which serves as the BPC's equivalent to a SWAT team (with EMPS).
  • Referenced in Portal 2, where the Space Core warns the player to "Play it cool, here come the space cops".
    • "Help me, space cops. Space cops, help."
  • Ratchet & Clank has various forms of this such as the Galactic Rangers for the Solana Galaxy and the Polaris Defense Force for Polaris.
  • This is the best description for IRPO (Inter-Regional Patrol Organization) in SaGa Frontier (even though it's remarkably unclear what a "Region" actually is). Their job is to monitor and police the various Regions, acting as effectively "Space Interpol". Because the heroes are constantly hopping from Region to Region in pursuit of their quests, IRPO frequently intercedes in their affairs, with IRPO agent Fuse being a recurring character (and in the Remastered version, the eighth main hero).
  • Space Channel 5 Part 2 has the Sexy Space Police.
  • Stellaris has a Downplayed Trope variation: Enforcers are a population job that reduce crime, generate Unity and spawn Planetary Defense Armies on the planets they work from. And the upcoming Nemesis DLC would make them more effective through the creation of a cooperative Gal Pol initiative (Interpol Recycled In SPACE). The regular military would still be called for Piracy Suppression or Trade Protection.
  • Tachyon: The Fringe
    • Star Patrol is responsible for keeping the peace between all the different warring megacorporations and assorted small factions. Their Enforcer starships are maneuverable, tough, and very, very well-armed. The few times where you have to tangle with them, you're strongly advised to run for the nearest TCG at maximum speed. There are also a few times where they fight alongside you.
    • Their cruisers are supposed to be the most versatile capital ships in known space, having the maneuverability of a frigate, the fighter-carrying capability of a carrier, and the firepower of a cruiser. They never participate in any in-game engagements, though.
    • While Star Patrol is supposed to enforce laws in all known space, they are, in practice, limited to the Solar System and parts of a single sector in the Fringe. Commander Alberion Obulo is determined to do his job well, though.
  • Sword of the Stars
  • Terran Colonial Authority in Unreal II: The Awakening. It's a human police force in space, presumably answering to the New Earth Government. They can also call in the Marines if things go out of hand.
  • The Wonderful 101: Immorta is an officer of the Galactic Federation Police pursuing both the GEATHJERK Federation and the Space Pirate Prince Vorkken. Since GEATHJERK decimated the Galactic Federation on their way to attacking Earth, she's the only one who appears.
  • Comes in "Border Patrol" and your standard "Police" variants in the X-Universe games. They buzz about, scanning ships for contraband. They have few weapons (typically just a few Impulse Ray Emitters, the peashooter weapon of choice), as actual combat is usually done by the Navy.

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 
  • The Tails Series has the Intergalactic Police Association, or the I.G.P.A. It's more or less an interstellar version of Interpol, considering agents within the organization can bypass certain jurisdictions and regulations regardless of what planet they're on.

    Western Animation 
  • The titular heroes from Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers. Frontier lawmen (and a law-woman) using Applied Phlebotinum to protect law-abiding settlers from Space Pirates, The Empire and the occasional Forgotten Superweapon on the Final Frontier.
  • The Galactic Guardians in Atomic Betty protect the universe from all manner of intergalactic crime and villainy.
  • The Plumbers in Ben 10, though it is a Retcon introduced by Alien Force as the original series portrayed the Plumbers as a defunct Men In Black-type organization. Omniverse later addressed this by saying that the organization was restarted not long after the original series and more aliens were recruited into the line-up.
  • BraveStarr. Granted, he's only one, but even the blurb for the movie said one man is enough.
  • The Space Rangers in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.
  • Casper and the Angels is a Hanna-Barbera series from 1979 in which the Friendly Ghost befriends two female space police officers named Maxie and Minnie.
  • The Looney Tunes short "Rocket Squad"', a Dragnet spoof set in space.
  • The Omega Confederation armed forces — their members have however bona-fide armadas — in Once Upon a Time... Space are described as a police force with tasks as patrolling space or humanitarian missions instead of a navy, even if later in the series build considerably more powerful warships.note 
  • Meap from Phineas and Ferb works for the Space Police.
  • Silverhawks
  • In the South Park episode "Pinewood Derby", the Space Police were sent to Earth in pursuit of notorious space robber Babyfark McGeezak. It's all a setup, police and criminal, to see what Earthlings do with large amounts of stolen valuables.
  • The Virus Warriors of Super Noobs. They protect the universe from the virus, which is a man made pathogen designed to turn organisms into monsters. They have superpowers that come from battle balls and can arrest those affiliated with the virus creators.
  • In Team Galaxy the 3 protagonists enforce the law throughout the stars as space marshals.
  • In one episode of Teen Titans, Centauri police arrive on Earth in pursuit of Starfire's sister.
  • Mandora the Evil-Chaser from ThunderCats (1985).

    Real Life 
  • For the record, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 stipulates that objects and people launched into space are under the jurisdiction of the country that launched them. And yes, this means that different modules on the International Space Station are under the jurisdiction of different countries. However, no country has ever seen fit to create an actual enforcement mechanism, presumably due to the limited number of people in space and the fact that those people are usually subjected to rigorous background checks anyway. As of The New '20s, no one has ever been charged with committing a crime in space.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Space Cop

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Chaku, G5 Galaxy Police Force

Devin, Nate and Steele meet up with Chaku, especially after he's able to regain his ability to speak normally. Chaku states that he's in Earth on a GPF mission to hunt down and arrest Ryjack.

If you look at the scenes with Chaku talking, you can see that the metal armor has GAVAN written on it.

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