Can't Stop the Signal: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"So I called that guy I know at NBC. And then I got to thinking -- [[Catch Phrase|You know what I hate?]] I hate those [[Genre Savvy|lame action movies]] where the good guy calls [[Have You Told Anyone Else?|just one person]] who ends up [[Big Bad Friend|betraying him]]. So I called ABC, CBS, The Post, The Times, the local news channel, and the FBI."'' |'''Smith''', '''''[[Shoot'Em Up (film)|Shoot Em Up]]''''' }}

A character [[Broken Masquerade|breaks]] [[The Masquerade]] by sending the details they have uncovered to the press -- oftenpress—often to multiple publications at once. Usually happens at the end of a work.

Occasionally this is the posthumous revenge of a [[Dead Man Writing]]. This can be used to subvert a [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]] ending -- theending—the protagonists achieved nothing and [[Heroic Sacrifice|died in the attempt]], but if it's subsequently revealed that they managed to get the word out, it might all be worth it. Can also be played [[Bolivian Army Ending|ambiguously]], with the audience unsure of whether the information gets delivered or not (or whether or not it [[Extra-Strength Masquerade|has any effect]] if it does).

Naturally, this is the ''modus operandi'' of the [[Intrepid Reporter]], especially when they're [[Going for the Big Scoop]]. If the messenger is relying on other people making a [[Last Stand]] to give him a chance, it's [[Bring News Back]].

* Episode 22 of ''[[Kiddy Grade]]'' has Chevalier, who hijacked the ''[[Cool Starship|Deucalion]]'' in the previous episode, broadcast all the illicit background dealings and incriminating evidence of corruption by the [[Blue Blood|Nouvlesse]] to every single news channel in the galaxy as well as the ship's true purpose: to disable the [[Portal Network|warp gates]] with a [[Everything Is Online|quantum virus]] then warp out of the galaxy, leaving the commoners to their fate of dying off as trade and planetary economies collapse while planets under [[Terraform|terraformingterraform]]ing will [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|revert back to inhospitable, killing their entire population]] who can't relocate since the warp gates are kaput. Needless to say, the commoners [[Zero-Percent0% Approval Rating|didn't take it well]].

* [[Akumetsu]] uses this ''continuously.'' {{spoiler|And, when the government decides to stop him from broadcasting his final "movie" on hijacked TV signals, he puts it all over the internet.}}

* A subversion in [[Milestone Comics]]' ''[[Hardware (Comic Bookcomics)|Hardware]]''. This is the first thing the protagonist tries, anonymously sending the media all the evidence he's gathered on Alva's wrongdoing. And the media pointedly ignores it.

== Film ==

* In [[The Movie]] of ''[[Watchmen (film)|Watchmen]]'', Rorschach sends his diary to [[No Celebrities Were Harmed|Not The]] ''[[Conspiracy Theorist|Weekly World News]]'' before the big showdown. At the end a writer is sent to dig through the "crank file" for a story, but it's ambiguous as to whether the journal was chosen or not.

* ''[[Serenity]]'', the [[Trope Namer]] -- the—the heroes use the late [[Knowledge Broker|Mr Universe's]] equipment to broadcast the truth about Miranda and "Pax" to the four corners of the 'verse.

{{quote| '''Mr. Universe''': ''Mal. Guy killed me, Mal. He killed me with a sword. How weird is that? I got a short span here. They destroyed my equipment, but I have a backup unit. Bottom of the complex. Right over the generator. Hard to get to. I know they missed it. They [[Trope Namer|can't stop the signal]], Mal. They can never stop the signal.''}}

* ''[[The Core]]'': [[The Rat]] sends the details of the {{spoiler|government earthquake-weapon research}} to all the world's news outlets.

* ''[[The Bourne Ultimatum]]''.

** And ''[[Green Zone]]'' -- Paul—Paul Greengrass likes this one.

* In ''[[The Constant Gardener]]'', when Justin sends a letter to his friend containing details of [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|a pharmacy company]]'s unscrupulous testing methods for their medicines, knowing he's about to be murdered for knowing too much. His friend reads it out as his eulogy.

* [[The Movie]] of ''[[Harrison Bergeron]]''.

* ''[[They Live!]]'' [[Inverted Trope|inverts the trope]]; the villains are the ones ''sending'' the signal (which maintains their [[Masquerade]] as humans like us), and the heroes wind up ''stopping'' it in the end.

* Smith from ''[[Shoot'Em Up (film)|Shoot Em Up]]'' does this out of [[Genre Savvy]] -- see—see the page quote.

{{quote| '''Higgins:''' Hey, Turner! How do you know they'll print it? ''How do you know...''}}

== Literature ==

* [[Isaac Asimov]]'s short story "[[wikipedia:The Dead Past|The Dead Past]]". A man discovers the secret of chronoscopy (a machine that can view the past), which has been placed under government control. He releases the information to several publicity outlets so it will become public, then learns ''why'' the government suppressed it: it can be used as an unstoppable spying device, which means privacy as we know it is ended.

* Frank Herbert's short story "Committee Of The Whole". A man uses the broadcast of a U.S. Senate hearing to describe a cheap, easily-built laser that could cut the Earth in half like a ripe tomato. He then spends several pages trying to justify distributing information that could allow any madman to destroy the planet. He later admits he had distributed the information far and wide earlier.

* [[Sherlock Holmes]] does this before he ends Moriarty once and for all.

* The old [[Interactive Fiction]] adaptation of/sequel to ''[[Fahrenheit 451]]'' ended with Montag publicly broadcasting the contents of a lot of the banned books.

== Live Action TV ==

* ''[[Push Nevada]]'' ([[Ben Affleck]]'s gimmick show where a viewer could win the money stolen from an [[In-Universe]] casino) -- the protagonist sends his evidence to every email address he can find.

* Averted, barely, in ''[[Highlander the Series]]'' only because Duncan uses the quickening to fry Paris' power grid -- andgrid—and the computer holding the disk which holds information about Immortals and Watchers.

* This is what drives one of ''[[StarcraftStarCraft II]]'''s branches, the Revolution/Matt Horner missions. {{spoiler|They manage to bring the truth to the Dominion's civilians, thus starting a revolution}}.

* In ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'', when the crew finds out about the [[Mega Corp|Wormgate Corporation]]'s [[Ancient Conspiracy]] to suppress the [[Teleporters and Transporters|teraport]] drive, [[Mad Scientist|Kevyn]] turns the invention open-source and submits the schematics to literally ''everybody''. He ends up sparking a galaxy-wide revolution, as practically ''everybody'' who had been prevented from fighting each other due to the Wormgate Network can suddenly go shoot each other whenever they want. Or, to put it in perspective for him:

{{quote| '''Kevyn''': I just spammed something like two thirds of galactic society.}}