"Ladies and Gentlemen! ...oh, and Helga. Welcome to... THE Q-FORCE!"
— Captain Qwark, Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal
Basically slapping "Force" at the end of a team name, just for Rule of Cool. Probably because certain Real Life organizations used "force" in their names, so you want your team to seem just as strong.
To fit this trope, "Force" has to be at the end of the team name, and it has to be a team explicitly calling themselves that just to seem cool.
Not to be confused with the forces of physics. Or with The Force.
Compare Awesome McCoolname, Name-Tron.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The English adaptations of Dragon Ball Z gave what is known in Japan as the Ginyū Tokusentai (lit. "Ginyu Special Squadron") the now iconic English name "Ginyu Force".
- Lyrical Nanoha's Riot Force 6. On a side note, this seems to be an Ascended Meme fansubbers in this case. The Japanese name for Hayate's unit is "Kidou Rokka", which basically translates to "6th mobile division"; hence, the less popular "Mobile Section 6" is actually a more accurate interpretation.
- In America, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman is known simply as G-Force in its macekre version Battle of the Planets as well as the second adaptation named G-Force.
- In Star Blazers, the English dub of Space Battleship Yamato, the ship's crew are called the Star Force.
Asian Animation
- Miniforce, an animal hero team reminiscent of Tokusatsu action shows like Super Sentai / Power Rangers.
Comic Books
- In Marvel Comics:
- Brute Force - a team of heroic Uplifted Animals in Powered Armor.
- Fantastic Force — A Fantastic Four spinoff team.
- X-Force — The X-Men's strike team. At one point in the early 2010s, there were two incarnations of X-Force active at the same time; they crossed over shortly before being cancelled/merged.
- A-Force, an all-female Avengers team established as part of the Secret Wars event.
- Freedom Force, a government-sponsored superhero team made up mostly of the "reformed" Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and led by Mystique.
- Night Force — Supernatural investigators.
- Atari Force — Originally a team of cross-dimensional explorers from a Crapsack Future.
- After Battle Comics lost the right to publish Action Force (see below under Toys), they came up with a thinly veiled ripoff called Storm Force.
- Femforce — An all-female superhero team.
- The Justice Force, a superhero team the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles encounters occasionally.
Films — Live-Action
- The Delta Force
- Fox Force Five, an In-Universe example from Pulp Fiction.
- G-Force
- Mega Force, aka the film with the flying motorcycle.
Literature
- Tribulation Force and Millennium Force from Left Behind.
- Phoenix Force from The Executioner.
Live-Action TV
- A syndicated action series Super Force.
- The Impossible Mission Force.
- Power Rangers:
- The American franchise includes Power Rangers Time Force, Power Rangers Wild Force, Power Rangers Mystic Force and Power Rangers Megaforce. Power Rangers Beast Morphers also has the Rangers as part of the organization Grid Battleforce.
- The Korean version of the show used to dub the American Power Rangers, but in 2004 switched to dubbing the Japanese Super Sentai source material under the "Power Rangers" name; and after two entries continuing to use the American titles ("Power Rangers Dino Thunder" for Abaranger and "Power Rangers S.P.D." for Dekaranger), they switched to using "Power Rangers _____ Force" as a permanent naming convention:
- The specific titles include "Magic Force" (Magiranger), "Treasure Force" (Boukenger), "Engine Force" (Go-onger), "Jungle Force" (Gaoranger), "Miracle Force" (Goseiger), "Captain Force" (Gokaiger), "Dino Force" (Kyoryuger), "Animal Force" (Zyuohger), "Galaxy Force" (Kyuranger), "Lupin Force vs. Patrol Force" (Lupinranger VS Patranger), and "Kingdom Force" (King-Ohger).
- Though Shinkenger has not been aired in South Korea, it is known as "Samurai Force" in the Korean dub of Kamen Rider Decade and "Blade Force" in Captain Force/Gokaiger.
- The Korean titles to avert a "Force" name since the practice began were "Power Rangers Wild Spirits" (Gekiranger), "Power Rangers Go-Busters" (...Go-Busters), "Power Rangers Dino Soul" (Ryusoulger), "Power Rangers Zenkaizer" (Zenkaigernote ), and "Power Rangers Donbrothers" (...Donbrothers).
Music
- The band DragonForce
- Five Iron Frenzy's song "Abraham Lincoln Beard" has the line "NINJA FORCE FIVE THOUSAND".
- 80's US Power Metal band Titan Force
.
Pinballs
- Police Force
- Special Force, a commando squad.
Pro Wrestling
- CHIKARA had The Colony: Xtreme Force.
- Tito Santana and Rick Martel teamed in WWE as Strike Force.
- Early in their careers, Shawn Michaels and Paul Diamond teamed in San Antonio as American Force, even though Diamond isn't American.
Toys
- Action Force, the original European branding of G.I. Joe.
- Assorted parts of the Transformers mythos give us Noble Force Mini-Con Team, Maximal Command Security Force, Rescue Force, Rotor Force, Galaxy Force, and Super-God Masterforce, among others.
- The titular team of LEGO Exo-Force is named Exo-Force.
- Star Com toys were marketed as "The U.S. Space Force''. The Animated Adaptation, on the other hand, treated the team as multinational.
Video Games
- Shining Force
- Dragon Force
- Freedom Force
- Thunder Force
- Mega Man Star Force
- Green's Seven Force in Gunstar Heroes, which can split to seven different entities: Soldier Force, Tails Force, Tiger Force, Eagle Force, Blaster Force, Urchin Force and Crab Force.
- Gotcha Force, which has a second shot at it with the villainous Death Force.
- Pursuit Force
- From the Portal 2 Art Therapy co-op course:
GLaDOS: To boost morale, I think we need a code name for the...elite squadron we have here. We should name it after your specialty. I know: Special Team Falling Into Acid Force.
- The PlayStation game Fighting Force.
- Terra Force, the sequel to Terra Cresta
- Skylanders: Swap Force, named for a subset of the heroes that can "swap" LEGO Body Parts.
- Metroid Prime: Federation Force
- Broforce. The titular team is made of parodies of (mainly) 80's/90's movie action heroes.
- The Q-Force from Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal and Full Frontal Assault, a team assembled and named by Captain Qwark. The latter game was even named "QForce" in PAL regions.
Web Animation
- An April Fools' Day gag crosses this, Darker and Edgier, and Xtreme Kool Letterz as it turns the Homestar Runner cast into the "Xeriouxly Forxe".
Western Animation
- The Voltron Force.
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force
- A very literal example, as "Rule of Cool" is the only justification for their being called any kind of "force".
- Monster Force
- Ben 10: Alien Force
- Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go!
- Titan Force Five of Titan Maximum
- Teen Force of Space Stars
Real Life
- When the Army Air Corps split off from the US Army, it was renamed to the Air Force, after the Royal Air Force of Britain.
- From 1940 until the formation of the US Air Force, they were known as the Army Air Forces, with the Army Air Corps existing at the same time (and making up the vast majority of the USAAF). This was a vast improvement over previous years, when Army airpower was run by two separate organizations, the Army Air Corps and GHQ Air Force, which operated in parallel (GHQ had very few planes, and it's honestly hard to tell nowadays exactly what they did.)
- While we're on the subject of air forces, how about the Royal Canadian Air Force, eh?
- Which was replaced in the 70's by Canadian Forces Air Command, combing Trope Force with that cool effect you get where a military unit has "Command" in its name.
- The original name returned in 2011.
- Many armed units such as the Delta Force, though that is not the unit's official name. Special police units will sometimes have names such as "Rapid Reaction Force" or something like that.
- Pre-1961, the French nuclear arsenal was known as the "Force de Frappe", which means, roughly, "Striking Force"
- In 1961, they renamed it to "Force de Dissuasion", or "Deterrent Force"
