Bug-Out: Difference between revisions
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{{trope|wppage=Bug-out}}
{{quote|At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that "news" is not something that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived and that he himself is no different -- in the crunch his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness.
|[[Robert A. Heinlein]], ''[[The Number of the Beast]]''}}
Maybe it's because of an oncoming natural disaster or an invading army -- or maybe your annoying brother-in-law just called to let you know he's dropping in for the weekend. But whatever it is, you have to get away from wherever you are, ''fast''. You pack a few bags, grab what non-perishable food you can, and bundle the kids into the car before heading off to safer territory. It's a '''Bug-Out''' -- a short-notice escape from some threat that you simply can't weather in place, because if you try, ''something'' bad will happen.
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If someone ''should'' Bug-Out but doesn't, it's probably because they [[Ignored Expert|ignored an expert]] who told them to.
Contrast with [[Last Stand]] and "Shelter-in-place". See also [[Crazy Prepared]] and [[Properly Paranoid]] for characters who are ready to Bug-Out at a moment's notice, and [[Emergency Stash]] and [[Survivalist Stash]] for caches of supplies that would come in handy in a bug-out situation.
{{examples}}
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* Aiko Yamada's panic in chapter 8 of the ''[[Ranma ½]]''/''[[Sailor Moon]]'' [[Crossover Fic]] ''[[Relatively Absent]]'', where because of her daughter Nodoka's actions upon learning of Ranma's apparent death, she is about to set in motion all manner of contingency plans, including the immediate dispatch of vulnerable underage household members to safehouses in overseas locations.
* The trope makes two appearances in the ''[[Worm]]/[[Harry Potter]]'' crossover ''[[A Wand for Skitter]]'':
** At the start of her second year, Taylor acknowledges the need to be prepared for a possible emergency exit from Hogwarts, and begins assembling a "bug-out bag" in the Chamber of Secrets.
** At the climax of the story, Taylor arranges an emergency evacuation of all the drugged aurors and Hogwarts staff by the expedient of having all the Hogwarts house-elves take them to St. Mungo's. Unlike the usual bug-out, though, she stays behind to face Voldemort, the Death Eaters, and their allies.
* When agents of the British Wizarding World unknowingly kidnap the daughter of the self-exiled [[Harry Potter]] in ''[[Exposure, a Dark Fic!]]'' by "Bobmin356", one of the first things his employers in the Muggle British intelligence service arrange is to immediately relocate Harry and the rest of his family, in the process completely emptying their house and wiping it clean of any evidence that ''anyone'' had ever lived there. They even go so far as to wipe the family's existence from any records available to agents of the Wizarding World.
== [[Film]] ==
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== [[Literature]] ==
* In [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Farnham's Freehold]]''
* In what is an example of the concept, if not specifically of the trope itself in action, in Heinlein's ''[[The Number of the Beast]]'' "Bug Out" becomes an emergency command code for the voice-operated autopilot of the interdimensional craft Gay Deceiver, that tells her to immediately transport to an empty, safe field in an alternate Mars.
* There is a subgenre of [[Post Apocalyptic]]/[[Speculative Fiction]] literature catering to survivalists frequently called "prepper novels". Almost every author of such works has at least one volume that is called "Bug-Out" or has the term in its title for obvious reasons:
** ''Stewart's Bug Out'' by Ron Foster.
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:Within this subgenre, the Bug-Out almost always includes a degree of self-congratulation or validation for those undergoing it (explicit or implicit), as it proves that the characters were "superior" in some manner to the rest of society who had looked down on them for their obsession with preparedness, and thus were "worthy" of survival. It is also frequently cast as a transformative event, allowing "ordinary" people to become [[Big Damn Heroes]], [[The Unfettered|unfettered]] by the restrictions of the decadent society which has died around them.
* ''The Nautical Prepper'' is a non-fiction book by Captain William E. Simpson II, which describes how to equip a sea-going vessel as a "bug-out boat" in which one can wait out disaster or social collapse far out on the ocean.
* "The Ministry has fallen!" Ron, Hermione and Harry's escape from incoming Death Eaters at the end of Bill and Fleur's wedding in ''[[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (novel)|Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows]]'' is a classic Bug-Out. Hermione even has a bug-out bag on her, although she'd failed to properly stock it with all the supplies they'd need.
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
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* ''[[Last Man Standing (U.S. TV series)|Last Man Standing]]'', a 2011-2021 [[Sit Com]] starring [[Tim Allen]] as an executive at a sporting goods store chain who is also a survivalist/prepper. Bugging out is discussed in multiple episodes, with one 2015 episode including a scene where Allen's character chastises an employee for not having bug-out plans and a survival cache.
* ''[[American Blackout]]'', a 2013 [[TV Movie]] from the [[National Geographic Channel]], which used a [[Found Footage Films|Found Footage]] format to tell a ''[[The War of the Worlds (radio)|War of the Worlds]]''-style semi-[[Mockumentary]] story of a nationwide disaster. One family followed by the story is prepared with their bug-out bags and immediately take off for their bunker in the woods.
* One of the most memorable sound bytes from [[CBS]] news anchor [[Dan Rather]] came from a live broadcast he made from Iraq in the 1990s. He closed the broadcast with "Time for us to bug out" -- which he and his crew did as soon as they were off the air.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Subnautica]]'' begins with a panicked dash by the player character into an [[Escape Pod]] when the starship he is on suffers a catastrophe and he must flee for his life.
* Every game in the ''[[Metroid]]'' franchise has at least one or two beat-the-clock events where Samus Aran must escape the base/ship/facility before it blows up with her still in it.
== [[Real Life]] ==
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