All The Tropes

Gone Horribly Wrong: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Gone Horribly Wrong (view source)

Revision as of 11:51, 8 April 2014

597 bytes removed ,  10 years ago
m
Mass update links
VisualWikitext
(→‎Real Life: clean up)
m (Mass update links)
Line 1:
{{trope}}
{{quote|"This is a ''bad experiment!'' We are ''bad people!!'' ''WHY DID WE USHER FORTH THE GREEN APOCALYPSE!?''"|'''[[Half-Life (Video Gameseries)|Gordon Freeman]]''' during the [[Apocalypse Wow|Resonance Cascade]], ''[[Freemans Mind (Machinima)|Freemans Mind]]''}}
 
{{quote|''"Labs like these exist to do stupid crap that gets people killed."''|'''Captain Ventralis''', Security Chief of [[Mass Effect (Video Game)|Peak 15]].}}
 
[[Stock Phrase]] used whenever that [[Science Is Bad|nasty old "science"]] inevitably [[Fantastic Aesop|messes up royally.]]
Line 14:
In their quest to advance human understanding, make a profit, help humanity, design a doomsday device, or otherwise undertake a high risk, high payoff enterprise, these people will have something '''Go Horribly Wrong!'''
 
The variations are limitless. Perhaps the non-polluting energy source [[Powered Byby a Forsaken Child|actually]] taps into the delicately balanced forces locked in a [[Cosmic Keystone]] or drains the planet's [[Life Energy]]. Or the hunger-killing super-wheat is actually [http://www.exitmundi.nl/gmfood.htm a super-weed that destroys all ecosystems]. And that's for purely ''peaceful'' things. Weapons of any sort will have things go horribly wrong on a [[Apocalypse How|cataclysmic scale]]. The "completely loyal" robot workforce has a [[Isaac Asimov|programming flaw]] that makes them [[Turned Against Their Masters|revolt]]. Maybe the [[Super Soldier]] program [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|inherently causes insanity]], [[Mutants|mutation]], or plain old [[What Measure Is a Non Super|megalomania.]]
 
These researchers will observe [[No OSHA Compliance|lax safety standards]], laxer morals, and be prone to [[Professor Guinea Pig|test things out on themselves]] or [[Strapped to An Operating Table|unwilling visitors]]. The [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] will callously and maliciously disregard all warnings, even for basic safety and good PR.
Line 22:
This is comparable to a [[Freak Lab Accident]], except at the beginning of a story. Heck, a lot of [[Speculative Fiction]] serves no purpose ''but'' to have something [[Go Horribly Wrong]].
 
See also [[Came Back Wrong]] for when an attempt at bringing someone [[Back From the Dead]] Goes Horribly Wrong. For when the experiment would be successful but is deliberately sabotaged, see [[Spanner in Thethe Works]]. Contrast [[Gone Horribly Right]], for when a project succeeds ''too well'' and the result is far worse than any accident could have been. When [[Gone Horribly Wrong]] results in a project or product being scrapped
immediately after its debut, it's a [[Disastrous Demonstration]].
 
Line 29:
 
== Anime and Manga ==
* [[Daitarn 3]] and [[Neo -Human Casshern]]. Creating cyborgs who are superior in every way to normal humans? [[Sarcasm Mode|There is absolutely no way]] [[Turned Against Their Masters|this is going to backfire]].
* [[Elfen Lied]]. Keeping that diclonius called Lucy seemed so easy, but as it turns out, it wasn't. [[It Got Worse|It Gets]] ''[[It Got Worse|Sooooo, Sooooo Much]]'' [[It Got Worse|Worse]].
* [[Fullmetal Alchemist]]. Try to bring back mommy dearest to life? [[Equivalent Exchange|I don't think so.]]
Line 44:
== Comic Books ==
* Responsible for quite a few supervillian origins. For example:
* [[Spider -Man|Norman Osborn]] creates a compound that grants super-strength and healing powers. And turns him into the insane '''Green Goblin'''.
* The New Mexico experiments with Gamma Radiation went very wrong for [[The Incredible Hulk|Dr Bruce Banner]].
* [[Sonic the Hedgehog|Doctor Finitevus']] first use of his Chaos Siphon suit turned him into a [[Mad Scientist]] and [[Evil Albino|bleached his fur.]]
Line 56:
 
== Film ==
* The film ''[[Alien (Filmfranchise)|Alien]] Resurrection'' had scientists clone Ripley in hopes of creating a Xenomorph for [[Just Think of the Potential|potential military applications]]. Needless to say, things go horribly wrong when the cloning gave the aliens more grey matter than the scientists, allowing them to escape and wreak havoc.
* The ''[[Terminator]]'' series. Because it's SUCH a good idea to make computers smarter than you then hand them military control. How come the only one smart enough to keep the Terminators from learning too much is Skynet?
** And yet ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'' reveals the existence of machines who have decided to fight Skynet on their own.
Line 63:
** Considering the fact that you can tap magma from the Earth's core at one of the hundreds of active volcanoes all over the ''surface'' of the world, they probably deserved to have it go horribly wrong.
*** Or, y'know, the fact that they used [[I Love Nuclear Power|nuclear bombs to do it.]] ''Weapons of mass destruction''. Even if they didn't have ways to tap magma without resorting to bombs, it's still pretty stupid to use ''nuclear'' bombs.
** ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' used a similar plot in "Inferno".
* In ''[[Deep Blue Sea]]'', scientists try to cure Alzheimers by harvesting the brain matter of super-smart genetically modifed sharks. What went horribly wrong? Well for one thing, experimenting with really aggressive sharks, underwater, [[Too Dumb to Live|on a platform in the middle of the ocean]], with no way of easy escape might not be the best idea ever ... {{spoiler|A shark fucking ate Samuel L. Jackson, for one thing.}}
* The movie ''[[Event Horizon]]'' is about an attempt at FTL travel [[Gone Horribly Wrong]]. Really, [[Gorn|REALLY horribly wrong.]] '''''[[Beyond the Impossible|Really, really, REALLY horribly wrong.]]'''''
* ''[[The Fly]]''. [[Teleporters and Transporters|Teleportation experiment]] is upset by a literal fly in the ointment. And then it happens again. Twice. And then [[David Cronenberg]] gets hold of the idea and does it twice as well and ten times as ugly.
* ''[[I, Robot (Filmfilm)|I Robot]]''. A new generation of robots built to be humanity's ultimate servants {{spoiler|rebels under the direction [[Master Computer|VIKI]] and attempts to protect humanity from itself under an overly strict interpretation of The Three Laws of Robotics.}}
** Well, technically it's more [[Gone Horribly Right]]. {{spoiler|The robots were made to be under VIKI's command, and VIKI's actions were all from her continuing to follow her programing and protect humans from the ultimate danger to them - themselves.}}
* ''[[Jurassic Park]]''. (And every other movie based on a [[Michael Crichton]] story, for that matter.)
** Except ''The Great Train Robbery''.
* Omni Consumer Products "improved" police robots went Horribly Wrong in both ''[[Robo CopRoboCop]]'' and ''Robocop II.''
** Murphy succeeded, but only because he's a special case. As shown by failed cases in the second film, most cyborgs don't handle their new existence well. Of course, using a drug-addicted criminal as a cyborg-policeman is probably not the best idea.
* The big reveal of ''[[Serenity (Film)|Serenity]]'' involves {{spoiler|a test of an experimental chemical on a planet's inhabitants designed to "weed out aggression"}} that [[Gone Horribly Wrong|went horribly wrong]].
** Technically, for the {{spoiler|99.9% of the population, the experiment [[Gone Horribly Right|went horribly right]]. It's just the remaining 0.1% (the Reavers) that belongs in this page.}}
** And what the Academy [[Mind Rape|did to River]] also went ''very'' horribly wrong - for both them ''and'' her.
Line 81:
* ''[[Total Recall]]'': a routine implantation of false memories at Rekall goes haywire.
** {{spoiler|[[Alternative Character Interpretation|Or worked perfectly]].}}
* [[The Film of the Book]] ''[[Time Machine]]'''s [[The End of the World Asas We Know It]] is triggered when humanity starts excavating more living space into the moon with nuclear weapons. When the hero uses the titular machine to go forward a few years, he finds himself in a dystopia and the fragments of the moon in the sky are getting bigger and bigger...
* The [[MST3KMystery Science Theater 3000]] episode ''It Conquered The World'' where SCIENCE almost lets a giant Venusian pickle take over the world. Too bad that the chief head science guy "learned almost too late that man is a feeling creature? and, because of it, the greatest in the universe..." This episode also spawned its own [[Me Me]] and possible alternative title for this trope in "He tampered in God's domain..."
** Incorrect, that episode was Ed Wood's ''Bride of the Monster'' wherein Bela Lugosi attempts to create a "rice of pipples" by turning people into atomic supermen. It doesn't end well for him at all.
* In ''[[Cloudy Withwith a Chance of Meatballs]]'', Flint Lockwood creates a device that makes it rain food. At first, everything is fine, but through constant overwork, the machine develops a mind of its own, and starts sending down bigger and bigger food, threatening to destroy the world.
* ''[[Battlefield Earth]]''. Beyond the obvious reference, how else can you describe the plot [[Alternate Character Interpretation|from the Psychlo perspective]]? You have a planet completely under your thumb, and one greedy mid-manager does an experiment on a subjugated race, which ultimately results in it gaining the knowledge and power to wipe out your home world and all of the occupying forces.
* In the 2008 ''[[The Incredible Hulk (Filmfilm)|The Incredible Hulk]]'' film, the army's experiments with Gamma radiation gives birth to the Hulk, and {{spoiler|[[General Ripper|Thunderbolt Ross]] and [[Psycho for Hire|Emil Blonsky's]] experiments with the [[Captain America|super-soldier serum]] leads to Blonsky becoming the Abomination}}.
 
== Literature ==
Line 104:
* In the [[Dale Brown]] novel ''Wings of Fire'', the Night Stalkers were supposed to only go into Libya to destroy some missiles. Then {{spoiler|Paul dies in the process of stopping the missiles and Wendy goes missing fending off a Libyan retaliation.}}
** In ''Executive Intent'', a [[Kill Sat]] is used in an attempt to destroy a bunch of terrorist and the missiles they hijacked. {{spoiler|It misses and kills many civilians.}} Things get worse from there.
* In ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Carpe Jugulum|Carpe Jugulum]]'', the vampires try to get [[Acquired Poison Immunity]] to various vampire weaknesses by constant exposure to them, included a wide variety of holy symbols. Unfortunately, when their will breaks, they start seeing holy symbols ''everywhere''.
* In [[John Brunner]]'s book ''The Dramaturges of Yan'', a race of lonely aliens decided to convert their planet into a spaceship, using the rotary force of the planets moon. Guess what: {{spoiler|It shattered}} When they get a chance, they try again. [[It Got Worse|It gets worse]]: {{spoiler|This time the planet its destroyed.}}
* ''Distant Rainbow'' by Strugatski Brothers: Rainbow is a name of lush planet which is used for experiments with teleportation. But one day the experiments {{spoiler|create the Deadly Wave, which begins to consume alll organics on planet from poles onwards, dooming it.}}
* In Robert Jordan's [[Wheel of Time]] series one man's plan to seal away [[Ultimate Evil|the Dark One]] ends up causing every man who uses magic go horribly insane and rot while still alive. This continues indefinitely into the future as well... {{spoiler|until [[The Chosen One|the Dragon Reborn]], our protagonist, restores the magic to its' prior purity.}}
** An even more extreme example in the same series happens before this, when all the trouble began when the greatest magic users in history discover a new and amazing source of power, without realizing that they are tapping into [[Ultimate Evil|the Dark One's]] prison, thus unleashing [[Sealed Evil in A Can|Sealed Evil In Aa Can]] and destroying civilization.
* In [[Alastair Reynolds]]'s ''[[Revelation Space]]'' universe, while the origin of [[Planet Eater|Greenfly]] is never explicitly revealed, it's strongly implied to have originated as some ancient race's (or distant future humans'... don't ask) terraforming device of sorts (as the artificial planetoids it transforms all planetary matter into are technically habitable).
* ''The Rising'' and ''City Of The Dead'': let's just run this particle accelerator and...oops, looks like we found the [[Sealed Evil in Aa Can]] that will [[Kill'Em All|wipe out our species]] with a [[Zombie Apocalypse]]. Joy.
* In the children's book ''Fish Out of Water'' by Helen Palmer and P.D. Eastman, a boy is instructed to feed his goldfish only a certain amount of food, and no more. But the goldfish still looks hungry, so he gives him a little more, and then the fish starts growing and growing....
 
Line 117:
* ''Doctor Who'' has naturally dabbled in this, with a key example being the classic Third Doctor story ''Inferno''. A scientist team attempts to drill through the Earth's crust to access an energy pocket to be used for fuel, but the pocket happens to come with nasty side-effects; namely a toxic slime that reduces humans to primitive ape-men and a [[Apocalypse How|colossal volcanic explosion that will roast the entire planet]]. The episode mostly takes place in an parallel universe, so we get to see the Earth (well, a fascist-controlled version of it, but Earth nonetheless) get destroyed in real-time with loving [[Tear Jerker|detail]]. Thankfully the Doctor was able to stop it before the cataclysm came to pass in his world.
* This trope is used in a light, funny way in the episode of ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'' entitled "The Vengeance Formulation." To get back at Kripke for humiliating him on NPR, Sheldon devises a scheme. He concocts a solution with the help of Leonard and Raj that has the ability to slowly expand and get all foamy, and puts some in the ceiling tiles of Kripke's office. However, the plan goes horribly wrong when Kripke enters his office accompanied by the president of the university and the board of directors. The foam breaks through the ceiling and drenches all of them. [[It Got Worse|It gets even worse]] when a pre-made video of Sheldon [[Evil Gloating|gloating evilly]] comes on Kripke's monitor, so the bigwigs now all know that he did it. He also names Leonard and Raj as accomplices.
* Dr. Weird from the openers of the first two seasons of ''[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Animation)|Aqua Teen Hunger Force]].''
* ''[[The Incredible Hulk]]'' TV show.
{{quote| "Doctor David Banner: physician, scientist; searching for a way to tap into the hidden strengths that all humans have. Then an accidental overdose of gamma radiation alters his body chemistry."}}
* ''[[Lost (TV)|Lost]]'': the DHARMA Initiative has gone horribly wrong at least once, with "the incident" that necessitated pushing the button every 108 minutes. (The demise of most DHARMA members may count, too, after we find out the whole story.)
* ''[[The X Files|The X-Files]]'' is proof positive that you should not let scientists anywhere near a laboratory without very strict supervision by a non-governmental agency.
* Many of the [[Crowning Moment of Funny|funniest moments]] of ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?]]'' happen when a game goes terribly wrong. Such as Wayne's H-O-R-W-A-R-D song, Ryan breaking the light on Drew's desk with his head, and the legendary "Quacking Elephants" sound effect game.
** Or Ryan Stiles eating an entire tin of Altoids mints as a joke ''after'' a sketch ended. (Colin Mochrie had given him a quick kiss as part of the prior sketch.) It didn't take long for him to realize what a really bad idea it was.
* In the ''[[Dollhouse]]'' episode "Omega" has Alpha's plan to {{spoiler|turn Echo into another Alpha by causing her to undergo a composite event}} [[Gone Horribly Wrong|Go Horribly Wrong]]... for Alpha. {{spoiler|Since the bulk of Echo's imprints were good guys, Composite!Echo is a moral person, and turns against Alpha. From the perspective of everyone else, the experiment Went Horribly ''Right''}}.
** Actually, it's made pretty clear that it's not the whole "bulk of the imprints" thing - it's who they were originally. {{spoiler|Alpha was originally a serial-killer-in-training so he of course was evil, whereas Echo was (mainly) a good person back then so she was good. In the future, Alpha's good imprints have eventually turned him into a good person and he's scared of turning back to who he originally was}}.
** ''Epitaph One'' is a bonus episode set in a future where ''everything'' has gone horribly horribly wrong.
* Pretty much all science on ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' with the possible exception of Warren's robots. Whether it's mutant steroid fish men, demonic Frankensteinian cyborgs, the animated dead looking for a girlfriend, or just the plan to collect the school library info on a database, if it's on the Hellmouth it will work and then start killing people.
* ''[[Star Trek: theThe Next Generation (TV)|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' has several:
** "Half a Life": They attempt to revitalise a star, and instead it goes supernova.
** "New Ground": the test a "soliton wave", which will allow ships a warp without a need for a warp drive, but {{spoiler|it destroys the test ship and threatens to destroy the target planet as well.}}
Line 143:
 
== Tabletop Games ==
* Happens all the time in ''[[Genius: The Transgression (Tabletop Game)|Genius: The Transgression]]''.
* Each Lineage in ''[[Promethean: The Created]]'' started with one human trying to raise the dead for whatever reason - companionship, curiosity, slavery - and getting bitten hard in the ass by this trope. Prometheans themselves can fall prey to this trope, as they need to produce another Promethean in order to complete their [[To Become Human|Pilgrimage]] -- and if they screw it up, they spawn a number of [[Came Back Wrong|Pandorans]] that will turn on them and try to eat them alive.
* Happens every now and then in the backstory of ''[[Warhammer 40000]]''. Not infrequently, the result is the Imperium destroying the planet where it has gone wrong.
Line 157:
 
== Video Games ==
* ''[[Bio ShockBioshock]]'' had an Objectivist Utopia go horribly wrong. Basically, the resident [[Psycho Serum]] caused everyone go insane, then [[President Evil]] had a civil war with [[The Mafia]]. Not to mention the hideous tumours and deformation on the infected , zombie little children draining blood from 'angels' (read: corpses) while accompanied by massive armoured brutes fused into their diving suits. If this wasn't more than enough, by the sequel we have a SENTIENT FETUS in a tank, a sub-Christian Communist cult (responsible for the above, and headed up by an exceptionally unpleasant example of the 'Splicers', a creature whose infected muscle tissue grows over it's clothes. Body Horror taken to the nth degree.
* If you're going to make an MMORPG set in a [[Comic Book]] universe, you're probably contractually obligated to lampshade this at least once. ''[[City of Heroes|City of Villains]]'' brings us the surprisingly [[Genre Savvy]] [http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Vernon_von_Grun Vernon von Grun], a [[Card-Carrying Villain|card-carrying]] [[Mad Scientist]] who not only expects things to go wrong, ''he looks forward to it'':
{{quote| ''This is terrible! Nothing bad is happening! We did everything perfectly, but something has gone wrong! My plans are all off-track. Mad science isn't supposed to go wrong like this! But the true test of a mad scientist is how much worse you can make things go wrong.''}}
Line 164:
* ''[[Halo]]'': Keeping samples of the unstoppable parisitic lifeform you just wiped out all sentient life in the galaxy in an attempt to starve for study? Bad plan.
** Not necessarily. Just like it's a good idea to keep cultures of diseases in labs in order to work on cures, as long as you take proper precautions. It's not their fault that a bunch of religious fanatics decided that it's a good idea to poke around secure areas.
* ''[[Chrono Trigger (Video Game)|Chrono Trigger]]'' has everything start going bad with Lucca's teleporter experiment. In hindsight, though, [[Because Destiny Says So|that was probably preordained.]]
* In ''[[Dead Space (Franchiseseries)|Dead Space]]'', not only is the mission to Aegis 7 by the CEC prone to this but so is the story behind the marker found there. {{spoiler|The marker found on Aegis 7 is a copy of the original Black Marker found on earth, which is an alien artifact of unknown origin. The Military brought the copy to Aegis 7 in order to run experiments with it using the information contained on it. And of course no one put much thought to [[What Could Possibly Go Wrong?]] and they put the experiments in rooms with easily accessible vents. Predictably, by the player who has by now learned to check vent openings in case a necromorph is about to crash through it, the experiments escape using said vents and slaughter the entire research base. They are barely contained by placing the Red Marker, where the colonists find it 200 years later, to suppress the [[Hive Mind]] since the Marker projects what is called a Dead Space where necromorphs are suppressed. This is without mentioning the fact that it has a 50% of driving anyone who goes near it insane to the point where they will scribble compulsively on the walls in complete nonsense. In fact out of all the scribbles these individuals scrawl only "Make us Whole" makes much sense. Though of course what that means exactly is a bit obscure though it is implied to mean putting the marker back where it was found. The [[Hive Mind]] is also implied to be created by this same experiment.}}
* The plot of the ''[[Doom]]'' games has [[Teleporters and Transporters|experiments in teleportation]] going Horribly Wrong, unleashing a plague of demons upon the surface of Mars. The Marines are called in to deal with the threat, and are wiped out except for [[One-Man Army|one survivor who has to kill his way through the forces of Hell]]. And then, [[Demonic Invaders|things]] [[Hell Onon Earth|get]] [[It Got Worse|worse]].
* The Peak 15 facility on Noveria in [[Mass Effect]] was build to hold the queen of an insect species that once almost destroyed the whole galaxy and develop a method to directly control her brood. Not only did the part about controlling the brood didn't work out, the "holding the queen" part didn't work either. When asked a week later in the midst of a hideous disaster what Peak 15 was built for, the captain of the security guards doesn't seem too surprised, prompting the page quote.
** [[Mass Effect 2|It all seemed harmless...]] It wasn't. Particularly for {{spoiler|poor David Archer, the guy at the centre of the experiment}}.
Line 177:
*** [[Badass Normal|Leo]] wasn't part of the experiment. That gives it a 50% Omnicidal Maniac output.
*** And they learned how to do it right after they tried it on Kefka, anyway.
* ''[[Wild Arms 3|Wild ARMS 3]]'' features the Council of Seven and their Yggdrasil system, which sought to produce nanomachine colonies to modulate the amount of nutrients and resources of their planet, Filgaia, to rejuvenate it, so it could restore the amount of life it once had on it. And guess what? The project worked. Right up until the scientists realized that Yggdrasil was sucking the planet dry of absolutely every life resource it possibly had.
* In the ''[[Geneforge]]'' world, experiments go wrong so often that laboratories, workshops, and schools are designed with the expectation that this will happen sooner or later. Some are built on uninhabited island, some are [[Collapsing Lair|built underground]], and some just rely on thick doors to [[Sealed Evil in Aa Can|seal the place off]].
** Which makes the Shapers the most [[Genre Savvy]] and sensible group on this page, since they know what they do is dangerous and try to control the experiments and consequences as much as possible. Almost all the strife and catastrophes in the series come from intentional misuse of Shaping.
** And some of those Shapers used their [[Genre Savvy]] to contribute to making things worse. The Geneforge itself is a history of things gone horribly right, from Trakov to the latest Ur-monsters. Even the rebels most interested in applying its powers admit that its as terrible as it is successful.
Line 184:
** Episode Two reveals that actually {{spoiler|everything went [[Just As Planned]]}}. Though we still have no idea what the GMan intended by goading the Combine to invade Earth and suffer a massive slave uprising 10 years later.]]
** [[Concerned|FROHMAN!]]
** In the same universe, [[Portal (Video Gameseries)|GLaDOS]] can be considered an experiment [[Gone Horribly Wrong]].
*** Or an experiment [[Wild Mass Guessing|gone]] ''[[Wild Mass Guessing|right]]''. Look -- there's no evidence GLaDOS failed as a de-icing system, and she is [[Staying Alive|arguably alive]].
* In ''[[Quake IV (Video Game)4|Quake IV]]'' every mission seem to do this {{spoiler|first your drop ship get shot down nearly killing you,then the EMP bomb plan fails, then you get turned into a Stroog, then you get shot into battle in a flying coffin (drop pod)which crashes.}} Basically then entire game is a series of plans gone wrong that somehow works out in the end.
* In ''[[Time Splitters]]: Future Perfect'', {{spoiler|Jacob Crow's attempts at eternal life result in zombies and the Timesplitters.}}
* ''[[Transarctica]]'''s backstory for the new [[Ice Age]] is "[[Meaningful Name|Operation Blind]]", a plan to cool global warming by kicking up dust with [[Deus Ex Nukina|nuclear weapons]] at the poles.
* Let's just say that [[System Shock|SHODAN]] wasn't designed to do what she did.
** {{spoiler|SHODAN was messed with before things got worse, though.}}
* ''[[Outpost Two2]]'': Eden's terraforming microbe was intended to break apart organic molecules and release oxygen to make New Terra into an earth-like planet in a single generation. Organic molecules like the ones ''in our bodies''. Needless to say, it gets loose and starts eating everything on the planet.
* In ''[[Prototype (Videovideo Gamegame)|Prototype]]'', there were two virus-based experiments. One, Blacklight, was a case of [[Gone Horribly Right]]. The other, Redlight, which Blacklight was based upon, was more of a [[Gone Horribly Wrong]]. Among other things, instant [[Zombie Apocalypse]] as soon as the latter gets released. This is why you don't try to create ridiculously powerful bioweapons ''without off-switches'', folks.
* In ''[[Trauma Team]]'', {{spoiler|Albert Sartre's}} research into the {{spoiler|Rosalia}} virus ultimately ended in an entire university becoming infected and dying, him going insane and {{spoiler|murdering Rosalia}} before similarly succumbing, and ultimately {{spoiler|a massive part of the US population becoming infected with the virus.}}
* In [[Freelancer]], it is implied that the massive [[Negative Space Wedgie]] nebula in the Texas system was caused by an incident at a jumpgate research laboratory. The details are unclear, but it can't have been pretty.
* In ''[[Gauntlet (1985 video game)]]: Legends'' and its re-release Dark Legacy, Garm attempts to summon the Demon King Skorne and use his power to usurp his older brother, Sumner, as the ruler of the Eight Realms. To do this, he requires the thirteen Runestones, but after a long time searching, Garm only manages to find twelve. Growing impatient, he goes ahead with the ritual anyways without the thirteenth Runestone, and manages to summon Skorne from the Underworld. Lacking the final Runestone, though, Skorne breaks free from Garm's control and crushes him to death, then proceeds to lay waste to the Realms.
** Subverted in the true ending of Dark Legacy {{spoiler|when Garm absorbs power from Skorne's remains to begin his own campaign to conquer the Realms.}}
* In the ''[[Fallout]]'' series, most of the underground Vaults seemingly designed to spare the population were in fact huge-scale social experiments designed to test their residents in order to determine their suitability and effectiveness in the event of the populace escaping the war on ''starships''. As the player character, you can locate and explore several of these vaults... most of which are abandoned, in ruins, littered with skeletal corpses and containing plenty of evidence to suggest that these experiments went very ''very'' badly wrong. Considering that the nature of most of these experiments took the form of sadistic and largely pointless psychological torture, [[Foregone Conclusion|this is not entirely surprising]]. And then there's the ones that had [[Gone Horribly Right]] instead...
* ''[[Star Control]] 2'' has several examples: first, the Slylandro Probes. The Slylandro meant to program the Probes to go out and make contact with other alien species, and in the meantime, self-replicate using nearby raw materials. They accidentally set the priority for "self-replicate" above "make contact", unfortunately, meaning that the Probes see ''everything'' as raw materials to be used in self-replicating (the Slylandro are horrified when they learn of this). The other example is the Mycon, a race of sentient fungi engineered by the [[Precursors]] as a terraforming system... that, due to several millenia of being left to its own devices with no input, now terraforms in reverse, seeking out fertile, beautiful planets and turning them into hellish firestorms in which to make more Mycon.
* The Xel'Naga of ''[[Starcraft]]'' made the Protoss and the Zerg to make the next generation of Xel'Naga. The Protoss attacked them after they realized that the Protoss were diverging from the plan due to them revealing themselves, while the Zerg killed and ate them due to sabotage from a third party known as The Dark Voice.
* ''[[Portal 2 (Video Game)|Portal 2]]'' halfway through the game introduces the origins of GLaDOS and how she became the overhead of Aperture Science. {{spoiler|1=Cave Johnson had his secretary, Caroline, be uploaded to a computer should he die before he could be uploaded. Caroline didn't want this at all, but she was forced against her will and essentially became immortal and stuck running the facility forever as GLaDOS. She then proceeded to kill all the scientists that tried to control her and make test chambers full of death traps.}}
 
 
== Webcomics ==
* [[The Good Witch]]: [[What Could Possibly Go Wrong?]] when you give magic powers to a transgirl who's bullied by apparently everyone in town? Her turning into a psychopath that makes [[No More Heroes|Travis Touchdown,]] [[Villain Protagonist|of all people,]] look like a candidate for sainthood!
* Pretty much anytime Riff begins playing around with [[Time Travel]] or [[Another Dimension|dimensional portals]] in ''[[Sluggy Freelance (Webcomic)|Sluggy Freelance]]'', things go horribly wrong ''fast''.
* Many of the spells Anne performs in ''[[The Wotch (Webcomic)|The Wotch]]'' (There's a whole arc titled "Consequences".) Cassie too, even the most innocent situations seem to have these problems.
* ''[[El Goonish Shive (Webcomic)|El Goonish Shive]]'': [[Big Bad|Damien]] was created as an attempt to cheat a vague prophecy by fulfilling it in controlled circumstances -- presumably, no survivors. Also, "''Every'' properly trained wizard [[Never Live It Down|has heard]] of Abraham, the ''[[Sorcerer's Apprentice Plot|idiot apprentice]]'' who ''[[Didn't Think This Through|recklessly]] enchanted'' a massive ''diamond'' instead of ''[[Cut Lex Luthor a Check|selling it]]'' to pay someone more ''skilled'' to fix his cursed noble friend."
* Happens about as often as one would expect in ''[[Girl Genius (Webcomic)|Girl Genius]]'', given its mad science setting.
* ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|Order of the Stick]]'': {{spoiler|Turning Xykon into a lich was partially done to give Redcloak some leverage on Xykon. It didn't work.}}
* ''[[Homestuck (Webcomic)|Homestuck]]'': Jade gave John four [[Infinity+1 Sword|Infinity Plus One Swords]] attached to an Infinity Plus One Bunny for his birthday. She didn't count on it falling into the hands of [[Omnicidal Maniac|Jack Noir]], giving him the firepower to become [[The Starscream]] and promptly [[One-Man Army|tear their Sburb session to shreds]]. And that's just the beginning of what led to their game session becoming [[Unwinnable By Mistake|unwinnable]].
 
 
Line 216:
* Lots of ''[[Whateley Universe]]'' examples, but how about the Russian program to create a nanotechnology [[Super Soldier]]? The ''best'' iteration had one functional survivor... who melted into goo a year later.
** Or how about the bioengineering mad scientist who was found on a personal military submarine... or, rather, the people searching that submarine found around a dozen or two protozoan monstrosities, and [[Squick|no trace of the crew]].
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series (Web Video)|Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series]]''
{{quote| '''Shadi''': ''But then something go horribly wrong.''}}
* Lampshaded in [[MSF High Forum]], as Michelle quotes it word for word. [[One of Us|"If I'm in hand-to-hand combat, things]] [[Pothole|have gone horribly wrong."]]
* In Episode 666 of ''[[BowsersBowser's Kingdom]]'', [[Super Mario RPG (Video Game)|Geno]] believes that the Zombie Apocalypse occurred because of the [[Resident Evil|Parasol Corporation]]'s attempts to create an unbreakable umbrella.
* Agent Fix from the [[Protectors of the Plot Continuum]] originated in a story where he was part of a [[Super Soldier]] program where the participants had their minds wiped in an attempt to ensure their loyalty to the corrupt and evil government. Unfortunately, there was one side-effect to the drugs... it didn't wipe residual emotions, meaning that when a bunch of super soldiers similar to Wolverine woke up with no memories but surrounded by people they hated, the result was a massacre.
 
 
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Jonny Quest (Animation)|Jonny Quest]]'' TOS episode "The Invisible Monster". Dr. Isaiah Norman's experiment gets away from him and creates a mass of energy that exists only to feed on other energy - including living things.
* In the ''[[Futurama (Animation)|Futurama]]'' episode "The Honking", as part of [[Meaningful Name|Project Satan]] a bunch of scientists decided to put together the most evil parts of the most evil cars in history, only to create a car of pure evil.
** Outside of the comedic nature of the whole show's premise, wouldn't that technically be [[Gone Horribly Right]]?
* The underlying premise of the 90's cartoon ''[[Exo Squad (Animation)|Exo Squad]]'' was that, in an effort to terraform Mars and Venus, humanity genetically engineered a race called "Neo-sapiens" that were bigger, stronger, and more durable in pretty much every conceivable way... and used them as [[We Will Use Manual Labor in Thethe Future|slave labor]]. Nope, can't see any way ''that'' could go wrong.
** Luckily, they're sterile. And can collapse into a pile of mush. Yay, science.
* ''[[Beast Wars (Animation)|Beast Wars]]'', Scorponok hits Optimus Primal with a cyberbee designed to turn him into a coward. Unfortunately, Scorponok is an incompetent scientist and instead turns Optimus into a [[Ax Crazy|crazed berserker]] who, by the end of the episode, tears through the Pred base with ease.
** Rampage was an attempt to replicate the immortal spark of Starscream. While that part was successful, Rampage was also driven completely nuts. [[Gone Horribly Right|And almost unstoppable]]. He broke out, and brutalized, massacred, and ''ate'' his way through several Cybertronian colonies before he was finally stopped.
* ''[[Re Boot (Animation)|Re BootReBoot]]'': Wellman Matrix was just trying to find other systems and create a doorway to them through his experimental stargate. Unfortunately the targeting scanners locked onto Killobyte in the Super Computer and transported him to the stargate and overloaded it. This triggered a massive explosion that obliterated Mainframe's twin city and spawned Megabyte and Hexadecimal in the process.
* The Nanites in ''[[Generator Rex (Animation)|Generator Rex]]'' were created to improve life on Earth and the human condition. Then something happened at the primary Nanite research facility that released a batch of Nanites w/ incomplete programming, infecting ''every living thing on Earth''. Now every living thing on Earth, from people to bunny rabbits has a chance of spontaneously mutating into a horrible monster.
* ''[[Adventure Time (Animation)|Adventure Time]]'' has Princess Bubblegum and her Frankenstein's Idiot, Lemongrab. She created him in her laboratory as the heir to the throne, in case something happened to her. Well... he didn't turn out as planned. Instead of a proper, reasonable heir, she ended up with a screaming, brain-damaged, mentally challenged, borderline autistic sourpuss with a pathological obsession with sending people to the dungeon. She stuck him in a castle outside of the kingdom, but he came back with she was transformed into a child, as she was "too young" to rule the kingdom. He ended up screaming at everybody and sending all of the candy people to the dungeon for one million years. All of this because something went wrong with that life serum...
 
 
Line 258:
* [[Church of Happyology|Scientology]], according to some ex-Scientologists has gone horribly, ''horribly'' wrong since Dave Miscavage took over. Ex-members say things have been steadily going downhill since the death of [[wikipedia:Lisa McPherson|Lisa McPherson]] caused Dave Miscavage to become an [[Domestic Abuser|abusive]] [[Paranoia Fuel|paranoid]] [[Small Name, Big Ego|dictator]] and it pains them to see the religion that helped them through some very dark times become a [[Black and Gray Morality|dark and twisted]] parody of itself.
** For example, the infamous practice of "disconnecting" or completely cutting all ties with people who are critical of Scientology originally meant to sever ties with ''abusive and controlling influences'', the equally infamous "SPs" or Suppressive Persons.
** Hence the [[Call a Rabbit Aa Smeerp|Scientologese]] protest slogan "DM (Dave Miscavage) is your SP!"
* The Large Hadron Collider can be used, amongst other things, to create microscopic black holes that would prove that there exists extra dimensions to our universe. Of course some people hearing this feared that the experiments would go so horribly wrong as to create Earth swallowing black holes. The probability for this to occur is in fact infinitely tiny.
** If you are worried something may have gone wrong, check [http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/ here] to see if the Large Hadron Collider has destroyed the World.
*** That site is based on the flawed assumption that when in fact the LHC ''does'' destroy the world (if it already has not), the aliens simulating our society in their giant supercomputers billions of years in the future for unfathomable reasons will surely not go in and change one website.
**** [[Mind Screw|Which assumes they haven't already]]. [[Tomato in Thethe Mirror|Which means that we are those aliens]]. [[Up to Eleven|Or their simulation program]].
* Cultivating hogweed to feed cattle in Russia in 50s. When they found out that it made the milk bitter, the damn thing had already thoroughly infested the territory and has been a bane of western-central Russia ever since. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Nice Job Breaking It, Stalin]]!
** That was sort of after the war, so it would have sense to use such a massive weed, and it has other uses. But the bitter milk's nothing--just ''walking'' through it causes mild poisoning by its juice and then nasty sunburns. Oh, and if it grows somewhere, the full removal takes several years. And recent mutants are even worse than the original. "Stalin's revenge", indeed.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/893496"