Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Forum administrators, Interface administrators, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
117,010
edits
No FEMA Response: Difference between revisions
added example
m (clean up) |
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (added example) |
||
| (5 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 4:
In the real world, when some horrible disaster happens, humanitarian aid generally pours in to the area. In the United States, these efforts are (in theory) coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or "FEMA" for short, hence the trope name. It may not be effective for whatever reason, but people ''try'' to help.
Not so in fiction, where earthquakes, terrorist attacks, and stranger events are ''avoided'' or outright cordoned off by the outside world and the survivors are left to fend for themselves. This seems especially prevalent in Japanese fiction, as it appears that nation has ''zero'' confidence in the stability of the social order—the slightest accident on the street will inevitably lead to [[The Simpsons (animation)|people cracking each others' skulls open to feast on the goo within]]. This goes double if it's a [[Go Nagai]] production.
This covers isolated disasters ignored by the outside world, not conditions where the ''entire'' fabric of civilization has been destroyed by global-scale events. A [[Lampshade Hanging]] of this trope as the first clue that a disaster extends ''beyond'' the purely local scale is such a common narrative device that it's very nearly a sub-trope.
Line 11:
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
▲== [[Anime and Manga]] ==
* Somewhat justified in ''[[Akira]]'' (manga version), as by the time major humanitarian aid efforts are on their way to Neo-Tokyo, Tetsuo and his followers have already organized the survivors into a militantly isolationist nut cult who ''attack'' the relief workers.
* In ''[[S-Cry-ed]]'', the Lost Ground has been placed under the jurisdiction of HOLY, which doesn't seem to care about civilizing the area in any way other than getting Alter Users under their control.
Line 35 ⟶ 34:
== [[Tabletop RPG]] ==
* The ''[[Shadowrun]]'' supplement ''Bug City
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Fallout 3]]'' establishes this trope was subverted to limited yet ineffectual degree in the Capital Wasteland at one point, while ''[[Fallout 4]]'' goes on to illuminate on the true cause this wasn't enacted on a wider scale in the Commonwealth, {{spoiler|since even before the bombs of the Great War fell, the organizations that were in charge of supplies were so riddled with corruption it's unlikely any significant amount of aid would have made it out to help anyone, had there been enough people left to distribute it}}.
* ''[[Devil Survivor]]'' features the Yamanote Circle, a vast swathe of Tokyo's shopping district, cordoned off by military forces ordered to ''kill'' anyone trying to escape the blackout zone. [[Justified Trope|Partly justified]] by the government's advance knowledge of events that are soon to take place and their attempts to keep the released demon-summoning technology from spreading to the rest of the world, {{spoiler|and then FULLY jusitfied when it's revealed that the angels were the ones who told them to lock down the circle, and have them under threat of heavenly retribution if they refuse.}}
** ''[[Devil Survivor 2]]'' raises the stakes. At first, some emergency services try to help out, but that becomes practically nonexistent due to a much bigger problem: {{spoiler|the entire world is slowly being destroyed thanks to the beings that govern the universe attempting to wipe it out}}. As a result, mere survival is a far greater concern not too long into the plot.
* After the opening destruction in the video game ''[[Infamous (video game series)|In Famous]]'' the government occasionally drops food and medical supplies, but no personnel enter the area, and there are groups of soldiers with authorization to use deadly force on anyone attempting to leave the city. Partially justified in that some unknown and deadly plague has infected a goodly amount of the citizenry.
* In ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' and its sequel, [[No Celebrities Were Harmed|CEDA]] ''tried'' to respond to the "Green Flu", but got overwhelmed. Inevitably, every time the Survivors try to get to a CEDA evacuation point, it'll be destroyed with nothing but corpses to show for it, and will end up having to escape another way.
* There is a FEMA in ''[[Deus Ex]]'' series... it just doesn't do what people expect them to do. Mainly, they maintain the fictional equivalent of CIA black sites.
* The original premise of ''[[I Am Alive]]'' was that massive earthquake in Chicago coincides with mass water shortages worldwide, so no early rescue teams arrived at the city.
** Subverted in the finished game with the Event, a cataclysmic series of disasters so widespread and destructive that it not only hindered relief efforts but also effectively ''destroyed'' almost all semblance of civilized order within a year after it began. This in turn left the survivors to fend for themselves...[[Humans Are
* Paragon City from ''[[City of Heroes]]'' is supposedly a major metropolis in Rhode Island on the East Coast of the United States, but a least five of its neighborhoods are in ruins or completely wiped off the map (The Hollows, Boomtown, Faultline, Eden/The Hive, and the Rikti War Zone) due to supervillain action and/or a recent alien invasion. Further, actual military forces from two foreign governments (Nemesis and Arachnos), a hostile NGO (Malta) and those very same aliens (the Rikti) can be found loitering on street corners in some of the higher-level zones. One would expect ''some'' response from the United States government to ''at least'' the military presences, but the only evidence that the Federal Government even ''exists'' are a couple of FBI agents who act as contacts. Averted slightly with the Faultline zone, which started as a shattered mass of broken buildings and chasms but was converted into a partially-recovered and -reconstructed zone about halfway through the game's original run.
{{reflist}}
| |||