Code Emergency: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Uh oh. A customer puked and you need to avoid a [[Vomit Chain Reaction]]. Or perhaps you've just spotted a [[Going Postal|disgruntled ex-employee]] walking in the doors [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|carrying a semi-automatic]]. Maybe there's a fire in the building but [[This Is No Time to Panic|you don't want to evacuate just yet]].

 

{{examples}}

 

== [[Film]] ==

* In ''[[Johnny Mnemonic]]'' Dr. Alcome is code for a general call to doctors when the clinic needs lots of help, but doesn't want to spook the patients. Amazingly, one of the characters doesn't get it and has to have it spelled out for her - All come.

** This is also at least partly [[Truth in Television]], as many hospitals will use this code if they need a lot of medical personnel in a particular part of the hospital (e.g., "Doctor Alcome to the emergency ward.")

* In ''[[Monsters vs. Aliens]]'', a guy at a UFO-spotting station in Antarctica is rather shocked to actually pick up something, and on the verge of panic calls in to headquarters to report a "Code Nimoy".

* In ''[[A Beautiful Mind]]'', when the main character is in hospital, the staff uses "code red" for when a patient starts cutting himself.

 

** Also by the hospital looking after her... when Nurse Remington is summoned to the front desk, it probably means you have outstayed your welcome.

* One [[Running Gag]] in [[Robert Rankin]]'s ''Armageddon II: The B-Movie'' was to have police disagreeing over which code was specifically required for a particular emergency. (Since they included "demon-possessed vehicle in a towaway zone", we can safely say that whoever came up with the codes is either very [[Genre Savvy]] or [[Crazy Prepared]].)

 

* Played with in ''[[Chuck]]'', where the staff have "Code Pineapple" to rapidly evacuate the store in case of emergency, but when they actually try to implement it they manage to induce a panicked stampede for the doors. Which, ironically, helps to avert the actual emergency.

** Hospitals ''do'' have codes for a large number of unbelievably unlikely situations. The horror comes when you realize there wouldn't be a code for it if it hadn't happened before.

* On ''[[Kings]]'' Silas' staff has a "code for when [he takes] too long in the bathroom".

** Which is a funny reference to the Biblical story where a Israelite assassin was able to escape because all of the guards and servants assumed that the king (whom he has just killed) was simply taking his time in the bathroom.

* ''[[Scrubs]]'' played with this once (as well as having some straight uses of it). J.D. fakes getting a 'Code 3' on his pager to escape a patient. When asked by the patient what it is, he replies "It's worse than a Code 2 but not as bad as a Code 4" and hurries out of the room.... barreling straight into a stretcher placed across the door and pitching headlong over it. Carla, still standing in the room, comments "''That's'' a Code 2."

** In the episode ''Back in the Red'', Cat suggests they forget Red Alert, and go straight to [[Bring My Brown Pants|Brown Alert]].

* On ''[[The West Wing]]'', characters used a code to get someone to immediately stop whatever they were doing, come quickly, and not ask questions by making a casual reference to an "old friend from home."

 

== [[Radio]] ==

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* ''[[Paranoia]]'' has a few dozen of 'em, such as Code 15 ("traffic accident") or 38 ("renegade mutant using unauthorized mutant power") or 54 [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|("free Hot Fun back at Central")]]. Confusingly, numeric codes are also informally used to gossip about how many clones you'll need in order to survive a mission; clones normally come in six-packs, so when a [[Impossible Task|"Code Seven"]] mission comes along...

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* In ''[[Modern Warfare 2]]'', there's a scene in which the hijacking of a Russian submarine with nuclear missiles takes a sudden turn for the worse. Much, much worse. Everything Ghost can do is scream "Code Black! Code Black!!!" {{spoiler|and watch a [[Nuke'Em|nuke]] heading for the US.}}

* Lampshaded completely in ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' when boarding the airship Palamecia: When first intruders are detected, the bridge declares Code Red, which later is raised to Code Green and eventually Code Purple. But it gets redicolous once the intruders disappear from the security scanners:

'''Primarch:''' ''"Desperate times demand flexibility. Code White."'' }}

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* The characters in the [[Robert A. Heinlein]]-esque ''[[The Saga of Tuck]]'' use American Sign Language, rotating numeric call signs and shortwave radios to maintain communications. It would probably be more light-hearted, seeing as they're all high school students, if someone hadn't nearly died.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* In ''[[Generator Rex]]'', Rex has problems keeping his codes straight. He once tells some friends not to worry as its "only a Code 2". When a giant EVO crashes through a building, he remembers that "the lower the number, the '''worse''' the situation".

 

** This dates back to the olden days of fire buckets, which usually contained sand.

** It's also used in movie theatres.

** It is also heard in a train stations.

*** Alternatively heard as "Inspector Sands" in an underground station. Played on a loop repeatedly for five minutes and nothing happened.

* Circus lore claims that the band will only play "Stars and Stripes Forever" in emergencies.

** Now accompanied by Amber Alert, a police/emergency services program that also sees frequent use as an analogue emergency page for "missing/abducted child."

* Hospital color/number codes are legion, and sometimes aren't even standardized between hospitals in the same system, let along hospitals in the same state. However, some calls are common enough to have generally recognized meanings:

** Code Green/Code 00/All Clear: all clear, resume normal duties

*** There are informal codes too. "Code Brown" universally means... [[Potty Failure|just about what you'd expect.]]

** For further clarification, radios can be a less than perfectly clear method of communication, due to various factors affecting the signals sent and received (interference from the building you are in, or electronic equipment/transmitters near you, or just something like a damaged radio antenna), so easy to recognize codes called Brevity Codes (or "Ten Codes", in the case of cops saying stuff like "Ten-Four") are used to quickly and clearly pass information along despite poor signal quality. The codes can of course also be designed to make eavesdropping difficult.

* In one school district, a "Code 3.03 meeting" was known universally, even among the students, as the code for a bomb threat.

* If you spend a lot of time riding in airliners, you might have stopped noticing the various bings and bongs and chimes you hear over the intercom during the flight. Many of these are coded signals for the aircrew (specifically the flight attendants) to pass on routine information without disturbing the passengers. Sometimes, these codes can include messages about possible problems on the plane, but often are just a signal for the flight attendant to pick up the intercom phone to talk to the flight crew.

** "Brace, Brace, Brace" is the standard command on aircraft to prepare for a crash landing.

* Since the theme park Sesame Place is supposed to be family friendly, staff are very restricted in their verbiage. Thankfully, they came up with interesting codes: Code Elmo-Bleeding/Blood, Code Zoey-Vomit. Code Snuffy and Big Bird are pretty obvious.

* Many security organizations use the APCO ten-codes, under which an emergency is "10-33".

* [http://www.cs.unc.edu/~azuma/dis.monorails Disney Monorails] used 10-codes, with some (alleged) additions.

* A Bay Area night club reported used the phrase 'Tango Nacho Underpants' as a shorthand code for 'someone is stripping on the dance floor'.

* After the [[wikipedia:Erfurt massacre|Erfurt massacre]], German schools created the phrase "Mrs. Koma is coming" ("amok" spelled backwards) to warn staff of active shooters. It was later used during the [[wikipedia:Winnenden school shooting|Winnenden school shooting]].