First they borrowed heavily from Star Trek’s iconic logo, now the United States Space Force announced their members will be called “Guardians,†news that Vice-President Mike Pence revealed on Friday. “Today, after a yearlong process that produced hundreds of submissions and research involving space professionals and members of the general public, we can finally share with you the name by which we will be known: Guardians,†the new military branch’s official Twitter account posted earlier today.
The name, they point out, was inspired by the motto of the Air Force Space Command, established in 1982 and then reconfigured into the U.S. Space Force in December 2019, “Guardians of the High Frontier,†which is ostensibly why the title reveal image also reads, “Heritage + Mission + Culture.†Of course, the internet immediately pointed out in return that, yearlong search or not, Space Force has seemingly named the guardians of our galaxy after 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Or, as the director of the Marvel film franchise James Gunn put it in a tweet about Pence: “Can we sue this dork?â€