| rdfs:comment | - In movies and TV shows, some supposed enemy appears: an alien from another planet, some unidentified earth-based target, or something else that it appears the only way to defend against it (whether or not it has hostile intentions) is the Army, Navy, and/or Marines. So the military comes out, and they start shooting, and they discover the enemy has shields, or that for some reason (or lack of reason) the military's best ordnance attacks do not have even the slightest effect. Or, worse, their opponent has ray guns or other equipment that can shoot down and/or incinerate attacking equipment and/or aircraft.
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| abstract | - In movies and TV shows, some supposed enemy appears: an alien from another planet, some unidentified earth-based target, or something else that it appears the only way to defend against it (whether or not it has hostile intentions) is the Army, Navy, and/or Marines. So the military comes out, and they start shooting, and they discover the enemy has shields, or that for some reason (or lack of reason) the military's best ordnance attacks do not have even the slightest effect. Or, worse, their opponent has ray guns or other equipment that can shoot down and/or incinerate attacking equipment and/or aircraft. So, you would think that, since the material they are using is being destroyed, the military commander would stop wasting ammo or equipment (not to mention the personnel being vaporized, killed, or seriously injured). No, they keep right on shooting, wasting ammo and getting their ass kicked, as if the purpose of the military is to continue to throw away its ordnance on invulnerable targets after it's been shown that there is no effect. Of course it can be argued that in truly hopeless situations in which it seems that the aliens intention is to utterly wipe out humanity, running away does not make all that much sense either, and dying in battle might even be seen as preferable fate. At best it might even buy time for the rest of humanity to discover the alien weakness. It's a play on the 19th Century surrender poem ("I Will Fight No More Forever") of the Chief of the Nez Perce Indians, when he realized that they could not win against the U.S. cavalry. In this trope, the cavalry can't come to the realization that it's not going to win, but it will keep on fighting, wasting ordnance and quite possibly people. See also Attack! Attack! Attack!. For the villainous equivalent, see Shooting Superman. Along with We Have Reserves, this represents the bulk of General Ripper's tactical and strategic repertoire (raising the question as to how he could actually make it to general...). Also compare Five Rounds Rapid, in which an armed force only uses small-arms fire to try to take down a monster, and never thinks to use some of the bigger weapons in its arsenal. Subverted if the enemy is not actually Immune to Bullets and can be taken down with (considerably) More Dakka. Examples of I Will Fight Some More Forever include:
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