If you’re not familiar with the Stormtrooper Effect by name, you’re nonetheless aware of the phenomenon. In many movies, notably Star Wars, the highly trained elite troops can’t manage to hit anything, especially not the protagonists.
If you’re vaguely familiar with the original Star Trek, you’re also familiar with Redshirts, the no-name quasi-Marines in red shirts, who apparently exist purely to die — and thus convey the dire danger the ship’s officers face.
Here’s the big philosophical question:
What would happen if Imperial Stormtroopers and Redshirts got in a firefight?
I’ll let you ponder that as I share another important action-story law, the Inverse Ninja Law:
The Inverse Ninja Law states that the effectiveness of a group of ninjas is inversely proportional to the number of ninjas in the group. While a single enemy ninja is often portrayed as a significant threat to the protagonists, a large group of ninjas is significantly less of a threat, and as such is easily defeated. This is sometimes applicable to other close combat-oriented minions as well.