Command and Conquer Red Alert Series

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Assistant: Did you find him?
Einstein: Hitler is... out of the way.
Assistant: Congratulations, professor! With Hitler removed-
Einstein: Time will tell. Sooner or later... time will tell...

Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act : The Series

The Red Alert series is a spin-off of the original Command & Conquer, using the same engines and gameplay as the Tiberium saga to tell a story of time-travel, Tesla-powered communists, and parachuting bears. Plausibility can take a backseat, now.

The premise of Red Alert is simple: in 1946, operating out of a laboratory in Trinity, New Mexico, Albert Einstein uses a time machine to travel to Landsberg, Germany in 1924 and removes Adolf Hitler from history. While this prevents the Nazis from rising to power and keeps Germany docile, unfortunately it leaves Josef Stalin with no obstacle to the Soviet Union’s expansion. This sparks an even worse version of World War Two during the 1950's as the Allies try to withstand the endless hordes of the Red Army, backed by deadly Tesla-based technology. But thanks to Einstein’s chronosphere and one nameless European commander, the Soviets are defeated.

Red Alert 2 is set during the 70's, when the supposed puppet-Premier of the USSR leads a world communist alliance in a surprise invasion of the United States, with the help of the mindbending psychic Yuri. Though once more the Allies rally to win the war, Yuri has his own plans and steals a time machine in an attempt to conquer the past. He's thwarted, but the time travel shenanigans aren't finished.

In Red Alert 3 Soviet scientists conclude that the Allies keep winning due to possessing Albert Einstein's technology, and so they build their own time machine to remove the physicist from history. This has the unintended side-effect of allowing a third faction to emerge, the Japan-based Empire of the Rising Sun. By the 1980's all three powers struggle once more for dominance, using some of the most insane arsenals ever imagined.

Please note that this page is for tropes that cover multiple games in the Red Alert series. Please add tropes relating to one specific game to that game's page.

Tropes used in Command and Conquer Red Alert Series include:
  • Action Bomb: M.A.D. Tanks in Aftermath, Terrorists and Demolition Trucks in 2, and Yari Minisubs in 3
  • Action Girl: Tanya, Natasha, and Yuriko.
  • The Alliance: The Allies, although they become increasingly American-dominated in successive entries.
  • All There in the Manual: The novelization, game manuals, various developer blogs, in-game database entries, and official website provide information that wouldn't be revealed during the cutscenes or gameplay.
  • All Theories Are True: The Red Alert series uses Tesla coils in ways that were once thought possible.
  • All Your Base Are Belong to Us: An engineer raid in any of the games can easily see half your enemy's base fall to you in one fell swoop.
  • Alternate History: Red Alert being the result of Hitler's removal from the timeline. Furthermore, the game used to be a prequel to the Tiberium series, before more time travel threw in further alternate timelines.
  • America Saves the Day: Brutally averted. All Allied nations receive fair representation, with a disproportionately large number of units and characters actually being British. Also, the US President is an incompetent, insufferable George Bush parody who ends up doing more harm than good in the long run.
    • Inverted in Red Alert 2, as it's the Europeans coming to the rescue of the Americans following the destruction of the Soviet's nuclear stockpile.
  • Artistic License Geography: Abound in almost all missions that feature major cities and/or landmark structures. The most Egregious example is probably the final Allied mission in Yuri's Revenge, where the 1000-or-so-kilometer distance between Tierra del Fuego and the Antarctic Peninsula is compressed into about 1.
  • Bare Your Midriff: Gina Carano and Jenny McCarthy are damn fine ladies. Kari Wuhrer also.
  • Base on Wheels: The Mobile Construction Vehicle, a literal base on wheels. It unfolds into the Construction Yard, which can then be used to produce any building in the game.
    • In the third game, the Soviet Sputnik and the second function of the Allied Prospector are largely the same. The Empire's base building is completely based on this - each building comes as a "nanocore" vehicle and unpacks at a designated position into a building.
  • Beard of Evil: Kane, Yuri and Cherdenko.
  • Big Bad:
    • Stalin in the first game.
    • Premier Romanov in the second (or Yuri if you're playing as the Soviets), followed by Yuri to both factions in the expansion.
    • Cherdenko and Futuretech in the third game.
  • Big No: Many. As befits the pilot of a Humongous Mecha, Kenji gets one with an echo in Uprising.
  • Bland-Name Product:
    • In the second game, McBurger Kong, a spoof of McDonald's and Burger King.
    • The MiG aircraft in the third game is called "Mikevich-Guroyan", instead of the real life "Mikoyan-Gurevich".
  • Bond One-Liner: The Desolator from Red Alert 2 and the Shock Trooper from Red Alert: The Aftermath. Ironically, the Spy, who is a Shout-Out to James Bond himself, doesn't use them except in Red Alert 3 when bribing enemy units

"Come on, fight for the winning team!".

Sickle: "Come on, we have lots of ammo."
Rocket Angel: "Unlimited ammo!"

  • Bowdlerise: The early games were subject to some changes to avoid an M rating in Germany. Most commonly was the tactic of calling all infantry units cyborgs and changing/removing sounds and effects that would suggest otherwise.
  • Broad Strokes: About the most charitable way to describe the continuity between the games.
  • Camp - So much of it. Red Alert 1 was pretty serious, but the camp set in with Red Alert 2, based off cheesy Red Scare movies from the 1950s. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 took it even further - it is pretty much the Adam West Batman of the Real Time Strategy world.
  • Canon Discontinuity: The references in Red Alert that tied it into the Tiberium saga as a prequel are ignored in later Red Alert titles, even though many of them were Crowning Moments of Awesome. Red Alert 1's hardcore fanbase was displeased. Word of God states that while Red Alert remains a prequel to Tiberian Sun, Red Alert 2 is the result of more time traveling shenanigans, making Red Alert 2 an alternate alternate future.
  • Casting Gag: Barry Corbin, who plays General Carville in RA2, is basically reprising his role as General Berringer from WarGames. There's even an explicit Shout-Out during one of the Ant missions ("I'd piss on a spark plug if I thought it'd do any good!").
  • Civil Warcraft:
    • Often in the second game, especially when Yuri's Mind Control is involved.
    • Many times in Red Alert 3. Twice for Soviet, first for Krukov's supposed betrayal, though it was later revealed Cherdenko is the one who framed him, second for Premier Cherdenko's event. Surprisingly (at least to the players), the Allies also got one against President Ackerman. The Empire don't get any until the expansion, at least in the Allies campaign and Challenge mode.
  • Cloning Blues: the Cloning Vats of RA2 and Yuri's Revenge, as well as Yuriko of RA3 being cloned several times, powering the Empire's ultimate ultimate weapon with many of her doubles. In Uprising she heads out to destroy a facility which has the sole role of mass cloning her.
  • Color-Coded Armies: The Soviets are red and the Allies blue, with certain justifications due to their political structure. The Empire of The Rising Sun (Japan) is orange (red and white were already handed out).
  • Convenient Color Change: When a building is captured.
  • Cool Airship: Kirovs.
  • Cool Boat: The Allied Cruiser deserves special mention. And the boats get progressively more Crazy Awesome as time goes on. The Helicarrier of Red Alert 1 would be here, but for some reason it's just set to be available at tech level -1, thus preventing its construction, though the player is only one variable away from being able to use them.
  • Creator Provincialism: Strongly averted in the first game, where nearly all the Allied cast are Europeans--it's not clear whether the USA is even in the war, as opposed to sending volunteers--and the three Allied sub-factions for skirmish missions are Britain, France and Germany. In later games, the Allies are still a broad mix of volunteers from various nations; their units have a wide variety of accents.
  • Crippling Overspecialization:
    • Tanya's absolutely devastating to infantry and can instantly destroy any building she gets close to, but is utterly useless against vehicles. Yuri's Revenge gave Tanya the ability to blow up vehicles as well, but she still had to get close enough to plant charges, whereas they moved faster and could usually fire while moving.
    • Also, several country-unique units in Red Alert 2, such as the Sniper and Tank Destroyer, the latter being most infamous in that it literally is only good against tanks. Even against buildings, which you'd expect them to be competent against (given that all other units effective against tanks usually do well against buildings too), they will only do chicken scratches to.
  • Cutscene: One of the early games to use live-action FMV to advance the game plot, the series at least does not overwhelm the game itself. Continues to be a key element in the Tiberium and Red Alert games, if only for tradition.
  • Cutscene Power to the Max: The Chronosphere in Red Alert 1 is shown teleporting many vehicles to the battlefield. In-game, it can only teleport one unit at a time every few minutes or so, and even then the repositioning lasts only a short period of time before the unit teleports back to where they were..
    • In 3, the King Oni is shown to be Kaiju-sized in the cutscenes, although it is much smaller in game. Also, in one scene, it is shown leaping up and punching a Kirov out of the sky, but in game, King Onis have no anti-air capabilities except the special ones piloted by Emperor Yoshiro and Kenji.
    • In many of the earlier games, after-mission cutscenes would show units doing feats that cannot be replicated ingame (The Chronosphere example above is one; a helicopter one shot-killing a tank is another).
    • In one cutscene for the first Red Alert a Tesla Coil is seen destroying a helicopter in one blast. In game, Tesla Coils can't even target airborne units! Though they can destroy Helicopters in one blast - if someone lands one beside the coil.
    • In Yuri's Revenge the Psychic Dominators shown in the opening cutscene are able to mind control entire sections of continents. To prevent it from being an enormous Game Breaker by giving Yuri's faction the ability to instantly control every unit and structure on the map if one is activated even once, in the game it can take over 9 units at most and cause a lot of base damage.
  • Death From Above: The Soviets in Red Alert 3 have a satellite that can pull enemy vehicles into orbit, and drop them back down later. There's also Kirov Airships, Devastator Warships, and the innumerable different bombers. Harrier pilots actually say this when attacking.
  • Dirty Communists: Naturally.
  • Easy Level Trick: The second Allied level in 2 can be beaten by skipping your base building and using your starting forces to destroy the levels target.
  • Easy Communication: If attacked outside their range of response, some units in the earlier games will just stand there getting shot.
  • Eenie Meenie Miny Moai:
    • In Yuri's Revenge, one of the missions in the Soviet campaign had the player confronting Moai statues retrofitted with lasers in Polynesia.
    • In Red Alert 3, when you fight Cherdenko in the Soviet campaign, his base has Moais retrofitted with 'man cannons.
  • The Eighties: Red Alert 3 is set in an alternate 1980s that's further been altered due to time travel hijinks.
  • Empathy Doll Shot: Right at the start of the original Soviet campaign, as the Soviet air force strafes fleeing villagers. You gave the orders.
  • Enemy Mine: One example is to be found in Red Alert 3 during the Allied campaign when the Empire of the Rising Sun attacks-the Allies and Soviets call a ceasefire to destroy the Empire, and proceed to betray each other at about the same time.
    • Happens in the Yuri's Revenge expansion to Red Alert 2 as well, when the Soviets and Allies team up to fight Yuri.
  • The Empire: The Soviet Union (especially under Stalin) and the Empire of the Rising Sun.
  • Everything Is Big in Texas: In Red Alert 2, one Soviet mission has you hunting down the U.S. president in San Antonio. All of the male civilians wear cowboy hats and fire handguns at you. The U.S. base is actually around the Alamo, though they don't garrison it. But you can.
    • Also played with: When the Soviets invade Texas from Mexico, one of their Apocalypse Tanks is shown crushing a "Don't mess with Texas" sign under its treads. The Apocalypse is the biggest tank in the game, of course.
  • Evil Laugh: Tanya may not be on the "evil" side, but just listen to her maniacal laughter as she mows down swathes of enemy infantry with Guns Akimbo. Sociopathic Hero, much?
  • Expy: The original Red Alert was simply a morality-flipped version of GDI and Nod acting as, respectively, the Soviets and Allies with some minor changes to both, though differences quickly arose. By The Aftermath, though, the Allies and Soviets had become much less like their Tiberian counterparts.
  • Faction Calculus: Allies (subversive) versus Soviets (powerhouse) in Red Alert. Except on the sea, where it's inverted.
    • Allies (balanced) versus Soviets (powerhouse) versus Empire (subversive) in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. Again, inverted on the sea, where the Empire is the powerhouse.
  • Frickin' Laser Beams:
    • The Allied Prism and Spectrum laser technology in Red Alert 2 and 3 respectively.
    • One Soviet mission in Yuri's Revenge puts you on the moon of all places. As the lack of a breathable atmosphere poses a problem for your infantry, you instead get jetpack-cosmonauts with laser guns.
  • Full Motion Video: The live-action cutscenes are a hallmark of the series (aside from Generals), and C&C is probably the only franchise that still uses them.
  • Garrisonable Structures: Introduced in Red Alert 2, and a series staple ever since.
  • Gatling Good: The Sentry Gun in Red Alert 2, then Yuri with his own Gatling Turrets and Gatling Tanks.
  • Heroic Dolphin: Used by the Allies in the second and third games.
  • Historical In-Joke:
    • The Cuba crisis in Red Alert 2.
    • The American sneak attack on Japanese-controlled Pearl Harbor in Red Alert 3.
  • Historical Villain Downgrade:
    • The Soviets after the first game. The first game gives what many accounts would consider an accurate depiction of Stalin's regime, but in the next two games they're just a joke.
    • A bigger case is the Empire of the Rising Sun in Red Alert 3, who are clearly modeled after Imperialist Japan, which in real life was infamous for its war crimes, which include pointless mass murders by the hundreds of thousands, enslavement of tens of thousands of women as sex slaves, and performing medical experiments on prisoners from their colonies that killed thousands of people. Even the whole honor aspect that's presented as a joke in the game was a scary thing in real life; they considered surrender dishonorable and would execute or use enemies who surrendered as slave labor, and fed their civilians propaganda about the Allies that drove them to commit suicide by the tens of thousands when America invaded the Japanese home islands. All of these thing are of course never brought up in the game and the Empire is simply presented as an over-the-top comedic organization, though interestingly it is brought up in an in-progress mod called Red Alert 3 Paradox where in the mod's version of RA 3 events, the Empire butchered a major Soviet city.
  • Hurricane of Puns: In RA3 Uprising, everything the Cryo Legionnaire says are cold-related puns of commonly used terms and Bond One Liners such as "It's snow time!" and "Let's kick some ice!", this said imitating Schwarzenegger's voice, who acted as Mr. Freeze in the Worst Batman Movie Of All Time. The name of the unit itself is a pun of an Allied unit from RA2.
    • Tesla Troopers with electricity puns such as "Here is your electric bill", " No Resistance" , "Like a Christmas tree", "Why so negative?".
    • This started with the Shock Troopers from the first game's add-on pack, The Aftermath. "Extra crispy!" "Fully charged!" "Shocking!"
    • The RA2 Desolators spout nuclear and environmental puns, such as "Here Comes The Sun!" and "It will be a Silent Spring." Given the nature of the Desolator and the timeframe of the game, this could even be a Historical In-Joke.
  • I Love Nuclear Power: The Soviets want to marry it. Of particular note are the Desolators. In Red Alert 2, they come with a radiation beam that skeletonizes infantry, and have a secondary ability that can deny a sizeable tract of land to your enemies. In Uprising they have a chemical sprayer and an acid shotgun/cannon reducing enemy amour. Heavily so.
  • Invaded States of America: Red Alert 2 is all about this. Several missions in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 are also about invasions of the US mainland.
  • Just a Stupid Accent:
    • The Soviets in all Red Alert releases. Also the Japanese in Red Alert 3. All the briefing and communication videos are in English. Some of the units sometimes say things in their native language though.
    • Taken to humorous extremes in Red Alert 3 when Tanya is able to lure the Soviet ships at Cannes into a trap by speaking English with a fake Russian accent. Perhaps everyone just speaks English in this timeline...
  • Kaizo Trap:
    • In the penultimate original Soviet mission, blindly following your objective (destroy or capture the Allied Chronosphere) would make you fail - you have to destroy all Allied presence in the sector first before doing anything with the Chronosphere.
    • In Red Alert 3, at one point you must prevent President Ackerman from reaching a specific objective point without killing him. Once you destroy the objective point (attempting to simply kill him yourself is itself a Kaizo Trap), he uses his own Chrono technology to warp over to an airstrip in an area you might not have thought to cover and attempt to flee.
      • Ackerman's car movement is a Disguised Timer. A clever player can try to use cryo-copters protected by Apollo fighters and other units to freeze his car's movement which would effectively remove the time limit. However, said player will be surprised by an unexpected cut-scene which shows Ackerman gloating as he supposedly reached the point. The car will still be frozen in place, too.
  • Kill It with Fire: Flame tanks, flame infantry, firebombing, flame towers. Of course, flame weapons are more devastating to infantry than to armor.
  • Large Ham:
  • Legacy Character: Tanya. Somewhat vague thanks to every campaign in the Red Alert series taking place in its own alternate universe, but her RA3 unit profile makes it clear that "Tanya" is a title that is passed down from one woman to another (whose real names are all classified) through the ages.
  • Lighter and Softer: The first Red Alert had you massacre an anti-Soviet resistance or fight to stop Stalin from nuking London. Red Alert 2 had mind-controlled squid and tanks that pretended to be trees. Red Alert 3 let you fire armored war bears out of a cannon and Tim Curry.
  • Lightning Gun: All those Soviet Tesla weapons.
  • Military Mashup Machine: Pick one from the list, and it's probably here somewhere.
  • Mission Briefing: You get them in front of pretty much every mission in the series. Red Alert 3 is particularly egr...notable, in that it gives you three for every mission: first the live action cutscene, then the world map briefing, and followed finally by a mission map briefing.
  • Monumental Damage: Often, in every game.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast:
    • Aside from Kane himself, some of the units bring up this trope, most of them being units that are incredibly apt at wiping out large amounts of particular enemies.
    • From RA2 and RA3, many of the Soviet units. The Apocalypse Tank, Desolators, Reapers, Harbingers, Terror Drones...
  • National Weapon: The Allies and Soviets have two each: Tanya and the Chronosphere for the Allies, the Apocalypse Tank and the Iron Curtain for the Soviets.
  • Nigh Invulnerability: The Iron Curtain in the second and third games temporarily makes a few buildings or vehicles immune to all damage. It kills infantry, though.
  • Nikola Tesla: Though he never appears or is even mentioned overtly in the series, it's safe to say Red Alert is probably where a lot of people first heard of Tesla.
  • Non-Entity General: Lampshaded in Red Alert 3, where near the end of the end of the Soviet campaign, a Conscript suggests that due to your success in taking it, New York City will be renamed "Commandersgrad" implying the non-entity-commander is actually named "Commander".
  • Our Presidents Are Different: President Dugan is a President Personable and President Iron in certain amounts.
  • Power Creep, Power Seep: The Soviets have become progressively sillier, cartoonier villains as the series ran its course, going from fear-inspiring Nazi counterparts in Red Alert 1 to near laughable villains by Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - along with the rest of the universe, though. Uprising undoes it a bit, having a bit of seriousness (particularly the Soviet campaign). In-Game, Mammoth Tanks and their counterparts have become progressively less threatening over the series - while they were always vulnerable to good micro, by RA 3 they were utterly helpless against aircraft and could be disabled by (none-too) tactful application of a freeze ray.
  • Power Glows: Starting with Red Alert 2, any unit that makes it to Heroic (max veterancy) status will find their weapon fire glowing red, either in the form of a large red muzzle flash, the projectiles themselves glow, or the explosions they create are bright red. Heroic-level Grizzly, Rhino, and Apocalypse tanks launched two miniature nuclear shells per barrel, and Heroic-level V3 Launchers and Dreadnoughts launched V3 rockets with small nuclear warheads. Kirovs also got tesla bombs, at least doubling the area of effect with a blue electrical glow.
  • Psychic Powers: Yuri is capable of mind control, and the Empire of the Rising Sun's hero unit in Red Alert 3 has powerful telekinetic powers. Yuri pulls a psychic possession over a telephone at the beginning of Red Alert 2 With the aid of a special building, he can mind control an entire hemisphere!
  • Psychic Radar: Thanks to Yuri, you too can employ psychics to monitor your battlefield and predict the movement of enemy troops!
  • Red Scare: The USSR are the main villains of the series.
  • Ret-Gone: The Chrono Legionnaire from Red Alert 2 had a gun that would erase people from the space-time continuum. Storyline wise, this happened to Hitler and Einstein.
    • And, oddly enough, it has absolutely no noticeable side effects on the rest of the world.
    • During the time-erasing process, the target can't take damage from anything else; removing your own buildings from spacetime temporarily allows them to easily survive direct hits from nukes, though your poor Legionnaires still get melted.
  • Reverse Cerebus Syndrome: See Lighter and Softer, above.
  • Schizo-Tech: The original Red Alert is set during the '50s, but features Apache helicopters ('86), the M1A1 Abrams ('80), and Hinds ('72). Red Alert 2 is set during the '70s but could pass for the modern day.
  • Serial Escalation: The first game takes place in an Alternate History. Word of God states that Yuri's Revenge takes place in an alternate alternate history. Red Alert 3 takes place in an alternate alternate alternate history.
  • Serious Business: What constitutes Canon is probably the most Serious Business in any fan community of an RTS game.
  • The Seventies: Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge are set in an alternate version of the decade.
  • Shoot the Shaggy Dog: In one Allied RA 1 mission, you have to carefully, painstakingly guide a single spy through a Soviet base to rescue Tanya. In the ensuing cutscene, the spy heroically bursts into Tanya's cell just in time... and is promptly killed. He does provide Tanya an opening to escape, though.
  • Shout-Out:
    • The Empire of the Rising Sun is basically a love letter to everything nerds love about Japan.
    • The aforementioned school girl (a disturbed psychokinetic Person of Mass Destruction), as well as the Empire's superweapon (the Psionic Decimator), may well be a specific Shout-Out to Akira.
    • There's Wave Motion Guns, Salaryman engineer units, Humongous Mecha, and Ninja!
    • Similarly, the cheesecake uniforms that the women wear is a Shout-Out to 1940's era pin-up art. Even more in the Uprising Expansion Pack.
    • The Harbinger Gunship is based on the Spectre Gunship in Generals (and real life for that matter). It is also a clear reference to the nuclear aircraft proposed during the Cold War.
    • The Pacifier FAV is a reference to the Siege Tank in StarCraft, made even more obvious that the title of the mission to unlock it in challenge mode is called "Ready to Roll Out", which is the Siege Tank's creation line.
    • Above was just one example, just read all the titles of the missions in challenge mode, many are references to other games and fictions. Other examples are Your Gold Mine Has Collapsed, Battle Royale, Athena's Wrath (Kane's Wrath), No Match For The Guardian (Sorpion tank's line, C), Red Crush (Nod crush, a song in Tiberian Sun), Superb Commander.
    • The Cryo Legionnaire in Uprising is a reference to Mr Freeze and the Chrono Legionnaire unit from Red Alert 2.
    • Less obvious, but the mortar cycle's death screams are the Stock Screams of Tiberian Dawn.
    • Speaking of Commander's Challenges, the Kill-A-Ton mission features the Desolator Trooper. Not only does the Trooper itself look like a Big Daddy, there is always at least one in the mission followed by a miniaturized Yuriko Omega, the Insane Little Orphan Girl of Red Alert 3.
    • Crazy Ivan, a term in computer gaming, goes all the way back to The Ancient Art Of War (possibly the first RTS, depending on how generous you are), and is a term taken from actual U.S. military slang, the most famous reference occurring in The Hunt for Red October, although appearing elsewhere beforehand.
    • In Yuri's Revenge, the first Soviet mission involves stealing Einstein's Time Machine and going back in time to stop Yuri. Unfortunately, a miscalculation places your army in the Cretaceous period, where they have to fight off dinosaurs until the time machine is recharged. In the Soviet ending, Yuri has the time machine and is about to use it to take over history when Lt. Zofia inputs the faulty coordinates. "What is that?" *CHOMP* Also, the second Allies mission takes place in Los Angeles:

Lt. Eva: Looks like they're making another dinosaur movie, Commander. I guess they can't come up with anything original.

    • The Korean Black Eagle aircraft in RA2 is probably named on the real Black Eagle air force aerobatic team of South Korea. Too bad the real Black Eagle planes are painted white, though. [1]
    • The series' resident Tank Goodness incarnate, the Mammoth Tank, is a nod to the Nazi German super-heavy tank Panzer VIII Maus, the largest WW 2 tank to reach the prototype stage; it was captured by the Soviets before it ever managed to hit the production lines. How is that relevant? It was going to be named Mammut[1], at one point. Possibly continuing this, the Mammoth Tank returns in Red Alert as the Soviets' biggest tank.
    • The War Bear may well be a shout out to Wojtek, a real life bear who served in World War II.
    • Red Alert 2 had a shout out to the Orca Aircraft in the Tiberium series when Eva comments on the absurdity of the Attack Dolphins.

Intelligence informed me that effective countermeasures involves specially-trained dolphins which are now at your disposal. What's next, killer whales?

    • The first mission in the Soviet Campaign in Red Alert 2? Operation Red Dawn.
  • Slap-On-The-Wrist Nuke: you'd expect actual nuclear bombs to do more than wipe out a few buildings.
    • Averted in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. Nuclear weapons themselves do no exist, but each faction's equivalent superweapon can wipe out whole bases.
  • Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness: The games get progressively sillier, in contrast to the Tiberian series, which does the opposite.
  • Standard Sci-Fi Army: Almost every single unit mentioned can be found in one or more of the Command and Conquer games. Despite being set in the 1950's, '"Red Alert still manages to provide exotic weapons, such as the teleporting Chronosphere and chronotank, weaponized Tesla coils, and force field generators.
  • The Starscream:
    • Just about all of Stalin's cronies in Red Alert 1.
    • Yuri in Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge.
    • Subverted in Red Alert 3: Cherdenko tricks the player into thinking Krukov is The Starscream - then it turns out Cherdenko himself is The Starscream. President Akerman also, as it turns out, becomes The Starscream, though only because he thought he was doing the right thing. Or because he was an Empire robot. One of the two..
    • Also subverted with the Empire: Tatsu is baited as the Starscream to his father for the first half of the campaign but the two eventually reconcile their differences after Emperor Yoshiro hears the Awful Truth about the Empire's origins. Given Command & Conquer games' propensity for Civil Warcraft and that even the "good" Allies suffer from one, this is actually quite surprising.
  • Strange Bedfellows: The Allies and the Soviets join forces in Yuri's Revenge to take down Yuri, and again in Red Alert 3 to deal with the Empire.
  • Steampunk: The Soviets in Red Alert, especially 2 and 3. More specifically, Tesla Punk, since they don't use steam power, though they certainly do use the steampunk style.
  • Super Soldier:
    • The Desolators of Red Alert 2 and 3: Uprising, bonus points since they are uncrushable, in Red Alert 2 they are heavy armoured elite soldiers armed with radioactive cannons which meltdown infantry and light vehicles with ease, their secondary is the ability to contaminate an entire area with nucler radiation powerful enough to keep killing units even after the desolators have moved out, in Uprising they are portrayed as terminal ill sadists in life support armored suits capable to withstand insane amounts of damage and pain, they use as weapons sprayers which look like gas dispensers, that release vile jets of chemical waste capable to meltdown any kind of infantry, including the female heroes, in the most horrific way, their secondary attack launches an corrosive core which slowdown units and make vehicles and structures highly vulnerable to their primary weapons, sounds cool eh?
    • The expansions to Red Alert featured Volkov, a 1950s Soviet Cyborg and his dog, Chitzkoi. Volkov had enough firepower and durability to take on a battleship (this being one of his missions!).
    • Uprising also features the Steel Ronin, who are disgraced Imperial commanders in life support armored suits, although these guys are armed with energy-bladed naginatas that can cleave through tanks and entire ranks of infantry.
  • Supervillain Lair:
    • In Yuri's Revenge, Yuri has a secret island, a family castle in Transylvania, and even a moonbase. Premier Cherdenko and President Ackerman have their own in Red Alert 3, the former inside a volcano, the latter around Mount Rushmore. The secret Futuretech research facility takes place in a haunted castle lair.
    • Lampshaded with Yuri's castle when Premier Romanov makes fun of it briefly ("He is like monster from movies") before he gave the Soviet commander the order to destroy it.
  • Support Power: Trope codifier for Type One support powers, choc full of every type in most games in the series.
  • Take Over the World: The Soviets want this in all three games, as do the Empire in the third. Depending on how you interpret what the Vice President says in the Allied ending, maybe the Allies too.
  • Tank Goodness: Each side in Red Alert (all the ones, just about) get a signature killer tank: The Mammoth Tank in RA1 (yes, a simple Palette Swap of GDI's machine); the more evolved Apocalypse and the Tesla Tank of the Soviets in RA2, along with the Allies' Prism Tank and Mirage Tank; the Allies' Battle Fortress in Yuri's Revenge; and not only do the Apocalypse tank, Tesla tank and Mirage tank make a return for RA3 but the Allies gain an amphibious naval destroyer as well as discussed earlier. The Tesla Tank is now a speedboat with spider legs for walking on land. Even discounting the King Oni, the Japanese still have the Wave Motion Gun tank.
    • The Allies didn't really have any cool tanks in Red Alert. Unless you count the teleporting one.
      • In the Counterstrike expansion pack, the Allies where about to get a stealth tank that shoots missiles, but unfortunately it was cancelled, and only shows up in a (Soviet) mission.
  • Techno Babble: Lots of it. Repeatedly lampshaded, as the scientist characters generally fill in the generals on the technology while the player is being briefed. Since the generals can make neither head nor tail of what they're being told however, they cannot go on to explain to the player. ( [After lots of rambling about physics] "Yes, but what does [The Iron Curtain in Red Alert] actually do" "It makes units invulnerable" "Thank you")
  • Tele Frag: Using the Chronosphere in Red Alert to teleport infantry will automatically kill them. In Red Alert 2, the Chronosphere could also be used to teleport tanks onto water or ships onto land, thereby destroying them.
  • Temporal Paradox:
    • Precisely what happens to the "old" timeline when you change history in Red Alert is never explained, but no Universe-Ending Paradoxes ever ensue.
    • In RA1, Albert Einstein went back in time to eliminate Adolf Hitler, resulting in a time-split and thus stopping WWII in its roots in this RA universe. However Stalin's communist Russia rose to an even higher power without a critical enemy.
    • Overuse of the Chronosphere creates Chrono Vortices, which are literal paradoxes and can kill anything.
    • RA2's add-on Yuri's Revenge lets you travel back to the beginning of RA2, which is another time-split. At the canon end of YR, the timelines merge again.
    • RA3 begins with the Soviets, after RA2 (Yuri's Revenge?) traveling back in time to eliminate Albert Einstein. The new world they arrive in has no nuclear technology, but Russia has almost defeated Allied Nations... and there's a rising empire with Humongous Mecha just around the corner.
  • Themed Cursor: When you have an unit selected, your cursor becomes a sonar-like pattern when hovering over passable terrain, a "no" symbol when over impassable terrain and a crosshair when over enemies.
  • Time Machine: Einstein builds one to kill Hitler, then the Soviets build one to kill him.
    • Supposedly the Chronosphere, but it acts more like a teleporter.
      • All There in the Manual for the first game says it stops time and thus allows units to move to a new location before restarting time, though that doesn't resemble what appears on screen at all. FMVs shows it as opening a hole vehicles can walk through.
      • Einstein actually says in Red Alert 2 that the Chronosphere is a device for teleporting objects, " . . . Through time, und through space." It does both at the same time, or none at all. (The exception being the time machine from Yuri's Revenge. Though for all we know you could have just been teleported three inches to the side.)
      • Considering the Earth, Sun, and galaxy are all in motion, it had better teleport you through space as well as time, or else the hapless subject would have ended up where the planet is...a few decades from now.
        • But there is no objective reference point for this. All motion is based on subjective local reference points.
  • Time Travel: The Red Alert series. By Red Alert 3 we're on an alternate alternate timeline.
  • Timey-Wimey Ball: Just try to explain the canon. Go on, we dare you.
    • Chronologically speaking: at some point in an alternate history where Albert Einstein single-handedly developed a method of time travel technology as well as the standard nuclear weapons, he decided that he's had enough of Adolf Hitler. The technology he develops allows one to go back in time to a given point, but if one touches any living thing from that time, they are erased, and the time traveler returns to the present, sans the now obliqued-from-history individual. Upon returning, Einstein finds that he saved the world from Hitler, sure, only to damn it even worse to Josef Stalin. The events of the original Red Alert then ensue, and the paths break (or are simply bad writing) as follows:
      • I. The Allies, especially Germany and Britain, and without direct American military assistance, defeat the Soviet Union. A brave new world then develops throughout the remainder of the 20th century... until the arrival of a strange substance of still unknown origin.
  • Title Drop:
    • At the end of the setup for Red Alert, Kane declares:

Kane: He who controls the past, commands the future... he who commands the future conquers the past.

    • Also in Yuri's Revenge, Yuri states "The entire world and all of its history is mine, to Command and Conquer"
  • Units Not to Scale: instead of complaining that the Allies managed to get an aircraft carrier in a lake, the Soviets should wonder what sort of lake can easily fit well over 50 aircraft carriers side-to-side.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: Once you get a heroic unit, you are going to want to keep them alive. Plus, you definitely get attached to the commandos, given all the one man (or woman) army missions you'll go through.
  • Wave Motion Gun: The Empire of the Rising Sun's artillery in Red Alert 3. They're even flat-out simply called Wave Motion Guns, and their floating fortresses use tri-barreled versions.
    • Don't forget the Allies' spectrum cannons used by spectrum towers and mirage tanks.
  • Weaponized Landmark: Red Alert 3 is the trope namer.
    • Red Alert 2 had, in the Soviet campaign, the Eiffel Tower used as a giant tesla coil.
    • Shortly after, in the Soviet mission in Washington, try get close to the Washington monument. It shoots laser!
    • And Mt Rushmore houses a laser, and its faces shoot lasers.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Stalin in Red Alert and his cronies try to pass themselves off as well-intentioned, particularly in his cronies' Starscream-esque moments (as they did in Real Life). Likewise to Premier Cherdenko and Emperor Yashiro in Red Alert 3, while President Akerman explicitly becomes this.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Yuriko in Uprising. Just play her campaign. The most heartwrenching part is that she has no idea what to do or where to go after having had her revenge.
  • World of Ham-TO have any position in the army, you must be at least somewhat hammy apparently, ESPECIALLY in Red Alert 3
  • World War III: The second game is an alternate World War III in the 1970s, taking place after the alternate World War II in Red Alert, and retconning its connection to the Tiberian series. Red Alert 3 is an alternate alternate World War III, coming in at the end of the alternate World War II with the Allies enjoying their victory, erasing the events of RA2.
  • You Require More Vespene Gas: Ore and Power.
  1. ↑ That's German for "mammoth".
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