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{{trope}}
[[File:Subnautica repair tool.jpg|link=Subnautica|thumb|500px|"The Alterra Repair Tool: Get your fix."]]
A universal, mundane-looking, multi-purpose hand tool whose user can magically fix any machine or structure without raw materials or effort, simply by waving it at the target from close range. Surprisingly, it is often not much use as a weapon.
Carried by the universal [[Worker Unit
Compare [[Green Rocks]], [[Duct Tape for Everything]] and [[Green Lantern Ring]]. For one of these that can break things instead of fixing them, see [[Swiss Army Weapon]]. Not related to [[Soul Eater|ancient artifacts of tremendous power]].
{{examples}}
== Comics ==
* The omnicoms used by DC's ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (comics)|Legion of Super-Heroes]]'' resemble iPhones with all manner of scanning/sensing and computing capabilities, although they actually predate the iPhone (and the cell phone, and the laptop computer) by several decades.
* ''[[Steelgrip Starkey And The All-Purpose Power Tool]]'' was centered around this trope. It's the size of a toolbox, but can be programmed to perform any task, from raising a skyscraper to clearing a polluted gulf. It runs on no visible power source, synthesizes new components and materials out of thin air, and is apparently indestructible.
== Film ==
* In ''[[Six
* All mobile phones of [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]]. [[Instant Sedation|Taser]], remote control for your car and hacking/lockpicking skill of 5000. Magic! Averted in ''[[Casino Royale]]'' and ''[[Quantum of Solace]]'', where the phones are just, well standard phones. [[Product Placement]] ensures we get a ''good long look'' at them.
▲* In ''[[Six String Samurai]]'' all that is needed to fix a car is a ratchet, cranked a few time on the dashboard. This may have been intentional, as the rest of the movie is pretty ridiculous, too.
** To make up for the lack of a magic cellphone, ''Casino Royale'' had a magic AED that could cure poisoning.
▲* All mobile phones of [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]]. [[Instant Sedation|Taser]], remote control for your car and hacking/lockpicking skill of 5000. Magic! Averted in ''[[Casino Royale]]'' and ''[[Quantum of Solace]]'', where the phones are just, well standard phones. [[Product Placement]] ensures we get a ''good long look'' at them.
== Literature ==
* ''Mischief In Maggody'': Non-scifi example: Joan Hess played with this trope when Kevin gets a job selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door. The brand he's selling apparently does everything from regular vacuuming to leafblowing to paint-stripping to ''scaling fish''. Heaven help whoever has to clean out the vacuum's filters and dust bag....
== Live Action Television ==
* In ''[[Doctor Who]]'', the sonic screwdriver is a piece of [[Applied Phlebotinum]] that can basically fix, break, lock, unlock, or otherwise modify anything you want. The only things it specifically can't do are unlock a [[Kryptonite Factor|deadlock seal]], inflict injury or kill. [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|Unless you're a Cyberman]]. Oh, and it doesn't work on wood. And it's vulnerable to hair dryers. And you can't triplicate the flammability of alcohol either.<ref>Though technically you can't do ''anything'' that doesn't actually mean anything.</ref> It may not be able to inflict injury, but if you're dumb enough to let him near the sound system it can sure as ''hell'' [[Loud of War|hurt your ears]]. Oh, and one time, it was used to ''drive a screw''.
** Then the Eleventh Doctor appears to use it as a weapon against the Silence, while River Song is shooting them. The screwdriver emits a green beam as he whirls back-to-back with River, but he's simply using the screwdriver on the ship that surrounds them, preventing the Silence from absorbing it to power their attacks.
* ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]''
** The Tricorder and related items, which often allow a skilled user to discover, diagnose, and fix almost anything with no other tools.
** "Assignment Earth" was a [[Poorly-Disguised Pilot]] for an Avengers-esque spinoff series. The protagonist of that episode, Gary Seven, had a do-anything gadget called a 'servo' which is sometimes suspected of being a direct ripoff of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver (it even looks almost identical), but which couldn't have been because the sonic screwdriver didn't make its screen debut until about a month after "Assignment: Earth" was filmed, and more than a year after Gary Seven's servo was first proposed in the [https://web.archive.org/web/20130513022238/http://www.fastcopyinc.com/orionpress/articles/assignment.htm original unsold pilot script] for ''Assignment: Earth''. Not to mention that ''Doctor Who'' wasn't seen in the US until the '70s.
== Tabletop games ==
* Although not strictly a tool [http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/prestidigitation.htm prestidigitation] has the most functions of any single spell.
== Video Games ==
* ''[[Starsiege: Tribes]]'': The Repair Backpack. Point it at a friend, hold down the trigger, and watch a red laser thingy heal him back up to health. Turn around and use the same laser thingy to repair a crushed generator to perfect condition. You can also used it to repair ''enemy'' equipment and players.
* ''[[Warcraft]]''
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** The "Power Tool" in ''[[Battlefield: Bad Company]]'' will repair any vehicle if held up to it and spun. It will also kill enemies if ... held up to them and spun.
*** The second usage is quite possibly more sensible than the first. After all, having a spinning power tool shoved into your face would likely hurt.
* ''[[
** One could argue that the SVC isn't all that unrealistic either. The "Fusion Cutter" is a reasonable tool for harvesting and not implausible for emergency combat, and you'd expect that it'd be used as a welding tool during construction/repair. Since the unit is actually [[Powered Armor]], it probably carries more tools than ''just'' the Cutter for construction. Now how it gets the construction materials to your beachhead halfway across the map is another question.
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] III: Morrowind'' and ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] IV: Oblivion'' have Repair Hammers, good for fixing all swords, bows, armor, hammers, axes, daggers, and shields.
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* While no one save for the developers at Treyarch know what it would have done, it's worth mentioning a canceled perk for vehicles for ''[[Call of Duty]]: World at War'' was called [http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/Magic_Wrench 'Magic Wrench']. Presumedly, it would be used to repair tanks.
* The Engineer's wrench in ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' is an exception to the rule: you ''can'' brain people with it. In fact, one repairs a structure or upgrades a sentry gun by whacking it with the wrench. The game's "manual" hangs a lampshade on the practice, as it's actually an instruction booklet on Sentry Gun maintenance. The instructions on upgrading the gun say, for example:
{{quote|
* In ''[[Star Wars]]'' Battlefront II, the engineer's fusion cutter can fix destructible objects, disarm mines, and cut into enemy tanks to hijack them, but not cut open an enemy.
* ''[[Command
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' has the appropriately named Omni-tool, a holographic tool that can dispense medigel, conduct electronic warfare, and function as a datapad, and repair vehicles and a certain plasma vent. It is also a definite threat in combat; if you bring her along, the tech-focused party member will brandish one as a threat while others draw weapons or take up their [[Pstandard Psychic Pstance]]
:In the game's [[Encyclopedia Exposita|codex]], it's explained that the Omni-tool's functionality is provided by [[Powers as Programs|downloadable programs]], and that its miniature nano-assemblers can perform programmed tasks in seconds. The encyclopedia does not explain the combat effectiveness of this ability, but playthroughs demonstrate that the omni-tool generates a mine (possibly an EMP generator of some variant) that the squad member then throws at the enemy like a grenade. The third game takes this even one step further by letting them produce a ''[[Laser Blade]] / [[Power Fist]]'' on command for melee attacks. Oh - and they can [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|run games]] as well.
* ''[[Half-Life 2]]'' series
** Alyx Vance carries around an all-purpose electronic...thing that seems capable of overriding, reprogramming or destroying pretty much any electronic barrier that stands in your way. Alyx then uses a ''gun'' on humanoid adversaries. The player's near-multiversal-tool, the Gravity Gun, is useless on heavier objects and humanoid enemies {{spoiler|until the last level, where simply ''dragging'' a bad guy forward kills him}}.
** The mod ''Empires'' features engineer classes with these kinds of tools. They do everything from constructing turrets to repairing personal armor to dismantling enemy buildings to reviving fallen troops (aka [[Back
* The multiplayer game ''[[Warhawk (1995 video game)]]'' features a wrench that repairs any friendly or unoccupied vehicle or turret by whacking it repeatedly. However, it can be used to destroy enemy equipment or just smack someone upside the head for an instant kill.
* Construction units and Commanders in ''[[Total Annihilation]]'' had nanolathes, which could create buildings and units, absorb terrain objects and wrecks for resources, repair damaged units, restore wrecked units and structures to full combat readiness, and even capture enemy units.
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* ''[[Homeworld]]'': The mysterious green beam, which fixes ships, is apparently the reverse operation of the mysterious ''red'' beam which gathers resources. In the sequel, harvesting is done by mechanical arms on the harvester, an apparent step back in technology. Probably taken from/inspired by ''Total Annihilation'' (see above), which predates ''Homeworld'' by a couple of years.
* ''[[Dark Cloud]]'': "Repair Powder," which takes this to a whole new level: merely sprinkling this miraculous powder on a weapon will instantaneously repair it.
* ''Savage'': There's no problem that can't be solved by [https://web.archive.org/web/20091001062528/http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20031015 hitting it with a sword].
* ''[[Deus Ex]]'' is a rare first-person shooter that almost completely averts the trope. You have nano-lockpicks, which can reform themselves to, well, pick locks. But for electronic security, such as keypads or security cameras, you need to use a different device, called a multi-tool. The function of these tools is more magical than the lockpicks. Finally, to break things such as crates open, you need an object such as a crowbar, police baton, or sword, all of which are themselves usable as weapons. The sequel plays it straight, abolishing lockpicks, as all traditional locks have vanished and replaced with keypads.
* In ''[[Sins of a Solar Empire]]'', the construction ships can build any structure. ''With a blowtorch''
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** The first two are the same when building units, structures, repairing and reclaiming resources.
* In ''[[Gadget Trial]]'', Izen medics use a ''giant syringe'' to heal/repair all other E-series. Which means from other Izens (infantry units), to ''battleships'' and ''bombers''.
* ''[[Desert Strike]]'' features "Armor Repair" Toolboxes scattered about each level, pick one up and it inexplicably repairs your chopper to full strength.
* In the ''[[GoldenEye 007 (1997 video game)|Golden Eye
* ''[[Subnautica]]'' has its Repair Tool, which fixes almost anything broken in the game, as long as it hasn't been reduced to shattered and scattered parts, by realigning its component atoms into the structure they should be in.
== Web Comics ==
* The proposed [https://web.archive.org/web/20100325235416/http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0220.html?printable=1 Utility Fog] {{spoiler|Hob is [[All There in the Manual|made from]] }}in ''[[Dresden Codak]]''.▼
▲* The proposed [http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0220.html?printable=1 Utility Fog] {{spoiler|Hob is [[All There in the Manual|made from]] }}in ''[[Dresden Codak]]''.
== Web Original ==
* ''[[Whateley Universe]]'': At the [[Super-Hero School]] Whateley Academy, Compiler has the power to control and animate nanites within five feet of herself. She has a nanotech
▲* ''[[Whateley Universe]]'': At the [[Super-Hero School]] Whateley Academy, Compiler has the power to control and animate nanites within five feet of herself. She has a nanotech [[Magic Tool]] that she even calls a [[Shout-Out|'sonic screwdriver']]. We've seen it transform into a magic marker complete with working ink. It's nothing ''but'' nanites, so it doesn't work if it's not close to her.
== Western Animation ==
* Penny's "book" in ''[[Inspector Gadget]]'' seems to be a complete electronic warfare system packed into a notebook computer.
* Leela's "thing on my wrist" in ''[[Futurama]]''.
* ''[[Kim Possible]]'''s "Kimmunicator" has whatever kind of [[Everything Sensor]] she might need, universal computer access, extensible robot arms for her [[Mission Control]] to help with and even the ability to fly back home if she loses it.
* Fix-It Felix's "magic hammer" in ''[[Wreck-It Ralph]]''—to the point that he can't use it to break out of a jail because it only makes the bars on the window ''better''.
== Real Life ==
* Multitools. The name says it all.
* Swiss army knives use this trope as a major selling point.
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[[Category:Strategy Game Tropes]]
[[Category:Video Game Items and Inventory]]
[[Category:Magic
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