Invisibility Flicker: Difference between revisions

 

The trope has the requirement that the flicker is in universe even if nobody sees it. The most common form is when the invisible object gets hurt, is physically contacted in some way or launches an attack itself. In action sequences, this often happens just before the invisible object does something awesome. Many times, it is also used as a form of balance. While this usage is especially common in games where it would be unfair for one party to be indefinitely invisible, it can also be seen in other mediums with handwaves such as the need to draw power away from the cloaking device to power the weapons.

 

See also [[Visible Invisibility]]. This is another method to [[See the Invisible]].

 

** Notably averted, however, in the first movie, where for a whole fight scene you only see ripples spreading on the water and the poor sod contorting in painful fashion from blows no one ever sees.

* In ''[[Soul Eater]]'', Black Star, who is quite skilled at stealth, insists on making the biggest entrance possible, thus preventing his sneak attacks from working. On the other hand, when appropriately motivated he is essentially composed of Badass, and doesn't particularly need surprise.

 

== Film ==

* The Id Monster from ''Forbidden Planet'' gets an early - and truly badass - blink [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k97JZHTCVbM during its climatic attack.]

* ''[[The Shadow]]'' in the film of the same name.

 

 

* The human eye is always moving, but the brain clips out parts of the movement to present a picture without motion blur. This is called saccadic masking. In Peter Watts's first contact novel ''[[Blindsight]]'', aliens develop the disturbing ability to time their movements to human saccades, rendering themselves invisible. It takes the heroes a lot of careful video analysis to even [[Paranoia Fuel|realise they've]] ''[[Paranoia Fuel|made]]'' [[Paranoia Fuel|first contact]]. [[Cosmic Horror|And these are really not the kind of aliens]] you want to discover dancing all around you...

* [[Cthulhu Mythos|Star Vampires.]] Invisible, chittering creatures, full of bloodsucking tentacles. Once they've drained a victim dry, they will momentarily become visible - and catching a glimpse of one during that moment is enough to drive most people mad.

* One of Molly Carpenter's favoured battle tactics in ''[[The Dresden Files]]''. That and her patented 'One Woman Rave' spell.

 

 

** Subverted in Star Trek VI (see "Film") when General Chang develops a bird of prey that can fire while cloaked... proving over the course of the movie that it's good for more than just taking out enemies.

*** Even here, we get a partial blink when Chang fires torpedoes and briefly lights up part of the hull.

* The {{spoiler|Nox}} in the ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' episode "The Nox" turned invisible, but then would reappear when {{spoiler|healing or resurrecting someone.}}

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** Then there's ''greater invisibility'', which subverts the trope - ''nothing'' makes it blink until its duration runs out. One gets the feeling a very bruised wizard looked at the ''invisibility'' spell in his spellbook, muttered, "Sod this!" and began to touch it up with a pencil. Of course, this version has a much shorter duration, but it's frequently worth it.

** Which is why some of the Fairy-type monsters are such godawful bastards to fight. Pixies have ungodly dexterity, NPC ones usually carry ''memory-erasing crossbow bolts'', and they can use greater invisibility ''whenever they damn well feel like it.'' In fact, the 2nd edition "Book of humanoids" explained that a pixie was ''naturally invisible''. It actually used magic to make itself visible when it needed to.

** Of course, by the time you get Greater Invisibility, you run into enemies, such as all Devils and Angels, who have true sight. This allows them to see through illusions, shapeshifting and, you guessed it, invisibility.

*** There is also a spell in the Spell Compendium called ''Superior Invisibility,'' that removes almost all of the round about way of detecting invisibility, as well as lasting minutes per level. You cannot be seen, heard, smelt, detected through heat signature, revealed through flour or like objects thrown around, or even picked up by magical detection or scrying. It even defeats ''see invisibility'' and other spells generally used to detect invisible creatures. ''true seeing,'' however, can still see through it. Of course, it's an eighth level spell so by the time you're high enough level to cast it, a lot of creatures you should be facing at that level are capable of using true seeing at will.

* The Amber Diceless RPG complicates the issue by attempting to bring physics into this, postulating that as long as you're invisible, you are also blind, since light "bends around" you.

** This is like light or sound meters in stealth games: the character usually doesn't have such a device on his person; it's shown as part of the user interface to tell the user something that their character just knows. Such as "Cloak or no, I'm not too stealthy when I'm firing a weapon that can wake the dead".

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' has these for a couple of the main characters. Cyborg Ninja, being a [[Conservation of Ninjitsu|lone ninja out for blood]], seems to blink back into view whenever he does anything more exciting than strolling down a hallway. And sometimes even then.

** Another, worse, problem: The AI doesn't seem to mind declaring war in order to get a unit to wherever it wants as long as the AI SEES no one there. As a result, the AI can declare war because a submarine of his was where the AI decided to move a ship.

** This was fixed for Civ 4 because Civ 4 allows units from different factions to occupy the same square. Hostile ships float right over your submarine unless they can detect it.

** Quickly flipping your suit mode to maximum armour, firing, and cloaking is a good way around this. It takes practice to pull off, though.

** The above was a pretty common tactic for hunting snipers in the online multi-player part of the game. The counter-sniper could sit prone in stealth for minutes at a time. And this is pretty much true invisibility. So you go stealth, move onto a ridge or building where you can see where the sniper is shooting from, and wait until you find him. Once he fires, you zoom in on him, switch to armour mode, shoot, then back to stealth. You don't waste energy, it only takes 2 shots to kill the enemy sniper, and you are invisible again seconds later.

** The cloaking Elites were often terrifyingly effective. They did leave a ripple in the air behind them, and flashy weapons like the energy sword were still clearly visible, resulting in strange fights where a seemingly magical sword would swish its way through the air and slaughter a bunch of the squishy humans you were fighting alongside.

** While not quite the same, the Spy's disguise ability masks their presence to enemies much like the cloaking device, by making them appear to be someone on the enemy side. As soon as you attack the disguise immediately dissolves.

* ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'s'' Infiltrator class can cloak nearly perfectly, until the first shot is fired. This works great with sniper rifles, but leaves you exposed while both working the action on the notoriously slow weapons and waiting for the cloak to cool down for reuse.

** Unusual in the Protoss Dark Templars are permanently cloaked and can attack (very effectively) without becoming visible. The Dark Templar hero is horrifyingly effective for just this reason, especially as he wields an [[Infinity+1 Sword]]. Oddly, in a midgame cinematic, Dark Templar hero Zeratul keeps blinking in and out of cloak while facing off against Zerg Queen Kerrigan.

* In ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'', a vampire-zombie-critter-thing with invisibility magic has this trait, which, combined with its complete lack of strategic ability, makes it pretty easy to defeat even without casting the Reveal Invisible spell.

* Once your cover is blown in any ''[[Splinter Cell]]'' game, everyone sees you, regardless of how dark the surroundings still are, and anything you do that doesn't involve killing or finding a better hiding place.

** That's not ''quite'' true. In the first two games, yes, enemies develop a magical "see you anywhere" ability. But in ''Chaos Theory'' and ''Double Agent'', they'll continue to shoot at the spot you just were at, or somewhere nearby and ''won't'' track your movements with superhuman seeing, allowing you to salvage the situation by skulking away and then coming up from behind.

* This has subsequently become a favored means of balancing stealth spells in video games. For example, in ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'', hitting something (or, if you use the spells unintelligently, ''being hit by'' something) cancels all stealth spells, and you must cancel Invisible status in particular if you wish to interact with anything, even doors. Similarly, in ''Final Fantasy Tactics'' and its spinoffs, as soon as invisible characters take any action at all other than moving, they become visible.

** Except for continuing to sing or dance if you were before turning invisible. A Dancer with high Brave and Sunken State is thus essentially unkillable, unless the first hit kills her completely. Meanwhile, she can either be steadily chipping away every enemies HP, or, far more entertaining, turning them all into silenced, blinded, confused, poisoned, slowed, stopped, and sleeping frogs.

* The Stealth ability in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' makes you invisible until you interact with something (unless the interaction is Pick-Pocketing), or until you get too close to something that's looking right at you.

** One up on this is the mage's "Invisibility" spell, which makes you ''so'' invisible that you can't even see anyone ''else.'' Although once again the spell is canceled if the mage tries to do anything useful, like casting other spells. Not to mention that the mages actually have a spell called [[Teleportation Tropes|Blink.]]

*** The Invisibility spell actually operates as more of a [[Phantom Zone]] situation than anything else; you can see other people who are themselves in your temporary "dimension". Invisibility seems to shift you to somewhere between the normal world and the ghost plane.

* ''[[Perfect Dark]]'' follows this trope. Cloaking will temporarily deactivate when you attack (which includes firing guns, pistol whipping, punching, and throwing things) under the [[Justified Trope|justification]] that sudden movement disrupts the cloaking field. Shields will also blink occasionally; useful for spotting shielded enemies and seeing the shield strength of allies, on account of shields [[Color Coded for Your Convenience|being color-coded by how much power is left]] (bright-red for full and dark green for almost gone).

* For some reason, the Replica Assassins in ''[[First Encounter Assault Recon|F.E.A.R.]]'' can't seem to stay invisible and punch you at the same time. Although it's less of a badass blink and more of a "pop into existence about 3 inches from your face before smacking you one".

*** Interestingly enough, [[Bullet Time]] is capable of rendering them visible.

** It is perfectly possible to get both, you just have to leave second subdermal slot open and wait for second invisibility can which can be found later in the game.

* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]: Oblivion'' there were two types of invisibility spells. One was called "invisibility" and made you invisible until you interacted with an object (Like a door), got in a fight, or the spell wore off. The other, called chameleon, made you translucent and refractive in what was probably the most badass effect in the game. However, chameleon worked as a percentage, so it was still possible for enemies to see you even at 99% chameleon. [[Game Breaker|If you got 100% chameleon, however...]]

** 100% chameleon also had the effect of making you completely transparent. Much fun is to be had in cloaking to 100%, riding a horse around, and convincing friends that you had turned yourself into a horse.

** And this is different from what you could do if you couldn't detect them at all how?

*** If you couldn't detect them at all, your swinging wouldn't automatically be in their direction no matter what. You can't tell how far away from you they are, but you sure know what direction they're in, even turning to follow them if they try to sidle around you.

*** Rooftrellen's ability Nature's Guise grants invisibility that does not break when the target uses a spell, but it fades if the unit is not standing near a tree

*** Lanaya's meld ability also grants invisibility, but it has no set duration. Instead, it is canceled whenever she moves.

*** Mordred the phantom assassin has the skill blur which renders her model transparent (but not technically invisible), making her look invisible. The only way to see her is to notice the faint blur or her shadow. Interestingly, actual invisibility and frost-based slow effects will reveal her full model (until the transparency is refreshed).

*** Rikimaru, the aptly named stealth assassin has a literal version of this trope; he is permanently invisible, but whenever he attacks or uses a spell he is revealed for a period of time (that gets shorter as the ability is leveled up)

** In the FPS Renegade, this happens to stealth Black Hand units. Also, falling damage made them blink, too. Usually the people who use them bunny hop away. Note that they're still revealed even when the "falling damage" is zero (i.e. falling from a jump). Also note that bunny hopping in that game [[Too Dumb to Live|isn't actually faster than running.]]

** That and stealthed units/buildings in Dawn and Sun can be revealed by getting a unit close enough that they would essentially be touching it. And the force attack (ctrl) command is your best friend for targeting cloaked buildings.

* In ''[[Global Agenda]]'', the Recon class pops out their stealth all the time when using their abilities or getting shot at.

* Reptile from ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' uses a cloak ability in later games.

* [[Escape Velocity]]: Nova has this for the Wraith, everytime they get close, they flicker a bit, same when they're angered and they attack you. The Polaris gets a cloaking [[Organic Technology|organ]] but requires you to decloak in order to fire weapons, later in the specific storyline, the Scarab and Raven are upgraded to have a specially modified Polaron ([[Macross Missile Massacre|multi-]])torpedo tubes that allow you to fire while cloaked.

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* Inverted in ''[[Samurai Jack]]'' with an ultra-powerful robot that has a cloaking device that activates only [[Fight Unscene|whenever it is kicking ass]].

 

== Real Life ==

** It's been said that while the B-2 has a very stealthy signature most of the time, as soon as the bomb-doors open, it shows up on radar the same size as the B-52.

** Also true of the F-22 and F-35. Not true of the Eurofighter, sadly.

* Long before stealth aircraft, there were submarines. Modern subs (especially the non-nuclear ones) are holes in the water but in order to fire any of their weapons they have to announce their presence. And "torpedo in the water!" is one giant [[Oh Crap]] blink.

** As long as the sub in question is using passive sonar, of course. If the target has passive sonar too, the sub doesn't need to fire, merely opening the torpedo launch tubes will freak out their opponent.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Invisibility Index]]