Dug Too Deep: Difference between revisions

[[File:dugtoodeep01 7893.png|link=Dwarf Fortress|frame|[[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney film)|Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to work we]] [[Oh Crap|g-OH CRAP, IT'S A]] [[The Lord of the Rings|BALROG]]!!<ref>[[Dwarf Fortress|This image menaces with spikes of]] [[User:Geoduck]]</ref>]]

 

 

A mining operation unleashes the [[Sealed Evil in a Can]]. The [[Trope Namer]] is of course ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', and it seems this happens ''a lot'' with little variation because [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same]]. A mine filled with evil is one of the great traditional [[Dungeon Crawler|Dungeons]]. Also, evil from mines have so many themes. You've got [[Greed]] and it can be a [[Green Aesop]] too!

 

Do not confuse with [[Enemy Mine]], when you and your enemy team up to face the [[Conflict Killer]], or [[Digging Yourself Deeper]], which is for awkward one-way conversations.

{{examples}}

* ''[[Mazinger Z]]'': An archaelogical expedition researching ancient ruins in the Greek Island of Bardos went too deep in the underground mazes of the island and found an army of [[Humongous Mecha]]. Subverted, since [[Big Bad]] [[Mad Scientist|Dr.]] Hell ''hoped'' finding them and using them to further his goals. Also, when Hell seized those robots, he drew the attention of the Mykene Empire -[[Beneath the Earth|an ancient civilization had been forced to live underground]]- and they decided return to the surface ''quite'' violently (in the sequel, ''[[Great Mazinger]]'').

* The construction of the [[Amusement Park|Marine Garden]] in ''[[StrikerS Sound Stage X]]'' of the ''[[Lyrical Nanoha]]'' franchise uncovered some {{spoiler|[[Underwater Ruins]]}}. It actually didn't cause any immediate problems and the park even advertised it as {{spoiler|one of the beautiful sights you can see from the Crystal Valley underwater tunnel}} since it appeared safe. Then [[Night of the Living Mooks|the Mariage]], who were also uncovered when Ancient Belka archeaologists dug too deep, appeared, {{spoiler|seeking their [[King in the Mountain|Dark King who was sleeping in the ruins]]}}, and all hell broke loose.

* In of the weirdest episodes of the otherwise [[Mohs Scale of Sci Fi Hardness|hard sci-fi]] series ''[[Patlabor]]'', underground construction woke up what was either a [[Kaiju]] or a ''dragon'' (the characters couldn't quite agree which).

 

* The creature in the 2008 ''[[Wolverine]]'' annual "Roar" was unleashed when a town suffering from a drought dug for groundwater where it was lurking.

* Clive Barker's ''Rawhead Rex''. Granted, he wasn't buried very deep.

* [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] miniseries ''Jedi Academy: Leviathan'' is all about this trope.

 

* ''[[Rodan]]'' was unleashed on Japan by miners breaking into a sealed chamber and allowing the egg to hatch. Not to mention the giant Meganulon caterpillars that were also in there.

* ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (film)|Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'' has construction workers unearthing Ivan Ooze.

* The dragons in ''[[Reign of Fire]]'' were discovered by underground construction workers as well.

* Possibly in ''[[Galaxy Quest]]'': "Where are the miners?"

* Played with in ''[[Aliens vs. Predator]]''. The Predators dug out the Alien temple in the arctic, but they did it on purpose. They use it to hatch aliens inside humans for sport hunting.

* Appears in ''[[The Descent Part 2]]''. Apparently, many years before the events of the film a mining operation dug just too deep.

* Implied to be the source of Perfection's Graboid infestation in ''[[Tremors]] 4'', in which [[Wild West]] miners uncover "dirt dragon" eggs and unwittingly allow them to revive.

 

* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'': The Balrog was found when the Dwarves of Moria "delved too greedily and too deep." It ''was'' [[Sealed Evil in a Can]], but then they woke it up, and it wiped out their kingdom.

** One of [[FoxTrot|Jason Fox]]'s ideas for "How Disney could improve its movies" went like this:

** Another Necron base was found in an {{spoiler|asteroid mine}}. Cain suspected, but as there were ''also'' tyranids attacking the asteroid, ''they'' got the blame for the deaths of the miners. It seems likely the 'nids actually arrived ''after'' just about all the humans were dead.

** The same thing happened in the [[Space Marine]] novel "The Fall of Damos". The Adeptus Mechnicus dug up necron ruins, collected artifacts and did not tell anyone else about it. Some time later the awakened necrons slaughtered most of the human population and were only halted by the Ultramarines.

* In the [[Simon R. Green]] novel ''Blue Moon Rising'' the inhabitants of a mining town Dug Too Deep just as the [[Big Bad]] awakened. By the time the heros get there it is far, far too late for anything except revenge.

* ''Streams of Silver'' by R. A. Salvatore: manages to combine both [[The Lord of the Rings|Moria]] and ''[[The Hobbit]]'', because the dwarves dug too deep and thereby somehow allowed access to a shadow dragon that drove them from their home.

* [[Invoked Trope]] in ''[[The Heroes of Olympus]]''. {{spoiler|Gaea forces Hazel to use [[Dishing Out Dirt|her powers]] to revive [[The Brute|Alcyoneus]]. After realizing this, Hazel buryed herself along with Alcyoneus to postpone Gaea's plans.}}

 

* Subverted in the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' episode "The Devil in the Dark". A monster starts attacking a group of miners after they enter a new level. It turns out to be a [[Mama Bear]] [[Monster Is a Mommy|protecting her eggs]] (silicon nodules), which were being destroyed by the mining operation. Fortunately, she's a very reasonable Mama Bear and Kirk and Spock are able to resolve the situation with a mutually agreeable compromise.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' in "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit." The title of the latter should explain it all...

* Used a few times on ''[[The X-Files]]'', usually with geologists whose explorations unleash a hibernating [[Monster of the Week]]. Another episode, in which loggers ''sawed'' too deep into a really ancient tree and released a swarm of killer bugs, could be considered a variant.

* A re-imagined ''[[The Outer Limits]]'' episode has a group of miners blast into an ancient cave containing a dinosaur fossil and a crapload of worms that quickly infest the miners and, shortly after, the whole town. Luckily, they hate light and need salt to survive.

 

 

* Judges Guild adventure ''Dark Tower'' (1980). A village was buried during a great battle between the forces of the deities Set and Mitra. After a hundred years of digging, searchers found the buried village, and discovered that someone was tunnelling up to meet them. Eventually the old village's inhabitants went mad and slaughtered the inhabitants of the new village built on top of the old one.

* Used quite well in ''B10: Night's Dark Terror'', a Basic ''D&D'' campaign module, where the breakage of columns in a natural cavern unleashed an uncommonly-nasty {{spoiler|monstrous mutant spider. Do NOT touch its webbing...}}'

* The ''D&D [[Ravenloft]]'' setting runs into this on occasion. It seems that digging too deep can open up a tunnel out of your domain and into another. Unfortunately, that other domain is full of illithids... Or possibly something that already ''ate'' the illithids.

* The ''[[New World of Darkness]]'' supplement ''Midnight Roads'' provides a couple of samples of this - some''thing'' living in the silver mine at the edge of a hidden community of illegal immigrants, or the "Hole to Hell", an abandoned mining tunnel in the side of a mountain that's full of voices pointing out a person's shortcomings.

 

 

* In the free flash game,''[[Videogame/Armor Mayhem|Armor Mayhem]]'', the player's company, [[Color Coded for Your Convenience|which was red]], dug deep into the game's locale, only to discover [[Womb Level|living caves and corridors]]. Still, [[Too Dumb to Live|they dug deeper]]. [[What an Idiot!|Smart business decisions]].

* The ''[[Penumbra (video game series)|Penumbra]]'' series heavily implied this in Overture but outright stated so in Black Plague that the source of all the deaths and strange creatures was the Tuuurngait, an otherworldly hive mind alien creature which shared its knowledge with the Inuits until humans became corrupt. The Turungait then dug into the earth and remained peacefully sealed away until the main until it was disturbed first accidentally by miners, then intentionally by [[Ancient Conspiracy|The Archaic]]

* In ''[[Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box]]'', this is what happened to {{spoiler|the town of Folsense, when gold miners discovered a metal that released a toxic, hallucinogenic gas.}}

* Played with in ''[[Dragon Age]]'' where, during the course of the Dalish elf origin, you can find "a strange statue commemorating the emergence of -- and short-lived trading partnership with -- dwarves who dug too high and too frugal and struck elves."

* In ''[[Fallout]] 2'', the miners of Redding presumably dug too deep in the [[Meaningful Name|Wanamingo]] mine, and unearthed massive amounts of the immensely strong ''Aliens''. [[The Chosen One|The player character]] can buy this mine, clear the mutant creatures out, and sell it for a large profit. This area of the game (along with the rest of the town) [[That One Level|is known to be very hard despite being available early in the game]].

** The miners of Redding seem to be particularly unlucky when it comes to digging, as when they are hired by the [[Putting on the Reich|Enc]][[Eagle Land|lave]] to dig up the remains of the [[Abandoned Warehouse|Mariposa]] [[Secret Government Warehouse|military base]], they are greeted with massive amounts of [[Body Horror|mutagenic vapors]] which slowly turn them into brutish super mutants. They kill their Enclave masters and take over the base. Two notable super mutants are created in this mess, [[Enemy Summoner|Melchior the magician]] and [[The Dragon|Frank]] [[Complete Monster|Horrigan]]. The Player knows about this because by the time s/he arrives, all the Enclave are either gone or dead, and they left behind graphic [[Apocalyptic Log|holodiscs]] on their corpses.

* Only really showing up in [[Fridge Horror]] in ''[[Tales of the Abyss]]''. Until much later in the game, the world is essentially a floating shell above a layer of poison miasma and bottomless mud. If you dig too deep in this world? You'll go ''right'' into the layer of bottomless mud. [[Fridge Horror]] when you consider this might have happened in Akzeriuth.

* In at least two instances in the ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' series, a [[Sealed Evil in a Can]] ends up being unleasshed this way, such as the demon Seth in ''The Last Revelation'', and the [[Giant Space Flea From Nowhere|Unknown Entity From Nowhere]] in ''Legend''.

 

* The origin of Deep Crows in ''[[Penny Arcade]]''

* In ''[[Digger]]'' this is how the story started, and arguably its entire premise. It is however of course deconstructed as unlike the dwarfs of Moria, wombats are [[Genre Savvy]] enough to know there are some things in the deeps you ''leave the hell alone!''

* Parodied in [http://xkcd.com/760/ this] ''[[Xkcd]]'' strip.

 

* ''[[Ruby Quest]]'': The Metal Glen started out as a fairly nice medical facility built on the seafloor. Then one of the administrators heard [[Eldritch Abomination|something]] whispering to him in the night, urging him to dig the foundations just a ''litte bit deeper''...

* The story detailed on [[Ted's Caving Page]]. A pair of cavers endeavor to widen a softball-sized hole in the wall of a local cave so that the passage beyond can be accessed. [[Nothing Is Scarier|This does]] [[Primal Fear|not]] [[Being Watched|end]] [[Ultimate Evil|well.]]

{{quote|2376. The [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same|Dwarven]] work ethic is not just "Dig until we hit evil."}}

 

* The ''[[Disney Ducks Comic Universe]]'' has to deal with these all the time. Most of Scrooge [[McDuck]]'s riches came from mining, after all.

* Sort of inverted in ''[[Captain Planet and the Planeteers]]''. When Hoggish Greedly and Rigger use a titanic machine to drill for oil along the shore, their drill goes so deep into the Earth it causes Gaia, the [[Sealed Good in a Can|sleeping spirit of the Earth]] to wake up and take action.

* In ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers]]'', a thumper using deep-penetrating sound waves to gather soil data deep underground Granna's surface wakes up the [[Cosmic Horror|Scarecrow]].

 

* The [[wikipedia:Deepwater Horizon#Massive oil spill|Deepwater Horizon oil rig]] happened to explode a couple months after it finished digging the world's deepest oil well? Coincidence? [[Epileptic Trees|I think not!]]

** Less "Dug Too Deep" than "[[Phlebotinum Breakdown]]" in the immediate sense, but it still qualifies, since [[Powers That Be|we]] were [[The Cassandra|aware of the risks]] and still [[Genre Blindness|took inadequate precautions]]. It's going to take more than an [[The Lord of the Rings|Istari]] [[Eccentric Mentor|Wizard]] to [[Sealed Evil in a Can|contain]] this [[Kraken and Leviathan|Balrog]].

*** "Iakob! Michael! I think we finally found [[Public Domain Artifact|the lost Ark]]! [[Poor Communication Kills|Those must be smoten unbelievers in the pictograph! Lets dig it up and bring it back to defend our civilization]]!"

*** [http://www.damninteresting.com/this-place-is-not-a-place-of-honor This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.]

*** This is called [[wikipedia:Nuclear semiotics|Nuclear Semiotics]], and when its principles are applied, will pretty much be [[Foreboding Architecture]], including a [http://www.damninteresting.net/content/yucca.jpg landscape of] [[Spikes of Doom|thorns]].

*** Here lies some [[Fridge Logic]]: wouldn't future people have devices to detect radiation? It is one of the more consistant dangers of Earth and a mountain of radioactive waste would set off alarm bells. Unless someone thinks there's treasure in the mountain of radioactive waste....

* The [[wikipedia:Sidoarjo mud flow|Sidoarjo Mud Flow.]] An Indonesian oil and gas company, PT Lapindo Brantas, in its search for natural gas in East Java, created a "Borehole" (a narrow shaft) into the Earth, digging more then 10,000 meters into the ground (a depth no natural gas has ever been found at before). Having ignored sensibility, they decided to ignore the law as well, not using the required protective equipment on the drill. The result? Running a giant drill next to fault lines has consequences, as the poor people of the surrounding villages learned when the drilling erupted a massive mud volcano, making 1.5 million people homeless. The eruption is still going on today, five years after the incident, spewing 88,000 cubic feet of mud every day—and is not expected to stop completely for ''at least'' another 25 years. PT Lapindo Brantas was ordered to pay up to $300,000,000 in damages. The higher ups tried to sell the company for $2 to off shore groups in an attempt to avoid responsibility. They were denied.

* The [[wikipedia:Iron Mountain Mine|Iron Mountain Mine]] in Northern California. When this location was mined out, they discovered that in addition to rich iron deposits, the mine contained acidophilic archaea that lived off of the rich iron deposits, metabolizing them and producing sulfuric acid as waste. This created extremely toxic hot springs with a pH of less than 1, which drained into other water sources, making the mine one of the most toxic waste sites in the United States of America.

** On the other hand, drilling for oil directly over a salt ''dome'' is a Really Good Idea: it's not uncommon for a salt dome formation to trap oil.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Cosmic Horror Tropes]]

[[Category:Video Game Settings]]