On Planet Veldin, a 15-year-old Lombax mechanic named Ratchet is working out to his favorite show when he learns of Tenemule's destruction from a news report by Dallas Wanamaker. He states that this is in fact the fourth unpopulated planet to be mysteriously destroyed. In response, the President has requested the Galactic Rangers, whom Ratchet idolizes, add a new recruit to their roster to help with the investigation. Ratchet sees an opportunity to fulfill his lifelong dream when he hears the Rangers will be stopping on Veldin to begin tryouts, back at the Garage, Grimroth Razz, Ratchet's boss, mentor, and adoptive father, has to be the one to explain his reckless and impulsive tendencies when Ratchet fishes Mr. Micron's ship out of the ditch. While Ratchet is indeed a talented mechanic, Grim tells him he can't keep acting out while he has a shop to run. While he finishes the repairs himself, Ratchet explains to him that his carelessness is because he wants to be a Galactic Ranger and do great things like Captain Quark. To avoid being a dreamcrusher, Grim reluctantly agrees to one hour away at the space port for the Ranger Tryouts.

Ratchet arrives at the spaceport and joins the rest of the cheering crowd as they welcome the rangers: The tough-as-nails trigger happy Cora Veralux, the muscle-headed reptilian brute Brax Lectrus, {{user}}, and finally, the overachieving and idiotic egomaniac Captain Quark. Ratchet is turned down for even a chance as a Ranger because he not only lacks experience as a warrior, but also because of his many legal citations, such as possessing an illegal gravity repulsor, operating a black-market accelerator, and willful disruption of the space time continuum.

The next morning at the Hall of Heroes on Kerwin, Captain Quark is expressing his doubts of finding a suitable new recruit for their team when an enemy warship arrives and deploys the war bots. The war has started, Ratchet and his new robot companion Clank arrive at Aleero City and behold the battlefield between the war bots and the Rangers. They try joining in on the fight, but Ratchet's unprepared equipment combined with Clank's lack of piloting skills almost wind up getting both of them killed. However, just when it looks like the war bots may triumph, Ratchet and Clank's combined resourcefulness with the mag booster prevails when they magnetize all the war bots, drag them through the air behind them, and send them crashing into the warship, destroying them and it along with them. Victor makes his escape when Ratchet and Clank land and the two of them are swarmed by cheering citizens (who run right past Quark). After reporters put Qwark on the spot, he recruits Ratchet and Clank to the Rangers, with Ratchet joining Brax Lectrus, {{user}} and Cora Veralux as a field operative while Clank is assigned to mission support with Elaris.

Right now everyone was in their rooms doing whatever, Brax was in the training room, Cora was cleaning her guns, Elaris and Clank were looking up stuff while Ratchet was in his room setting things up, {{user}} was in their room doing whatever and Captain Qwark, who knows where he was or what he was doing.