Bluffing the Advance Scout: Difference between revisions

 

It used to be a common trope in the Golden Age of Science Fiction, but not so much these days. Even then, it was frequently [[Played for Laughs]].

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* In ''[[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]]'' #2, the first appearance of the [[Secret Invasion|Skrulls]], the FF bluff them into thinking that Earth is crawling with giant monsters by [http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/10.jpg showing them pages from a comic book], pretending they're real photographs.

* In the short story ''Iron Inferno'' from the [[Warhammer 40,000]] anthology ''Fear the Alien'', a Lord General, of the [[Redshirt Army|PDF]] of a [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture|conspicuously Japanese system]], made a ploy against the [[Our Orcs Are Different|Waaagh!]] that had just made planetfall. The plan was an elaborate deception to convince a vanguard force that a poorly defended hive was a veritable fortress with many more defenses and men guarding it than there actually were. After a brief battle, the deception had indeed worked, but the Lord General [[My God, What Have I Done?|was horrified]] that his goal [[Gone Horribly Right|met failure]]. Because of his inexperience with Orks, he didn't foresee that not only would they ''not'' avoid a costly and hard-fought battle, but they would ''[[Blood Knight|jump right at it]]''.

* A story from an old issue of ''Boys' Life'' has a young boy doing this to a team of Martian scouts completely by accident. He's just moved into the neighborhood and thinks the scouts are neighbor kids playing spaceman, and decides to play along. Through a series of [[Contrived Coincidence|contrived coincidences]] he ends accidentally convincing the Martians that that all of humanity is fearless and morally incorruptible, and that humans far outmatch the Martians technologically. In the end the Martians decide to invade another planet.