Red Alert: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

'''Kryten''': There's no such ''thing'' as Brown Alert, sir!<br />

'''Cat''': You won't be sayin' that in a minute! And don't say I didn't alert you! }}

{{quote| '''The Doctor''': Oh, the misunderstandings - all those Red Alerts, all that dancing.}}

** UNIT in particular has been shown to have a penchant for red, employing "Red Alert", "Code Red Sontaran", and "''Ultimate'' Red Alert'' in season 4.

** The series prided itself on being more like a real ship, with accurate (or at least believable) use of jargon, than other sci-fi series. Note: three vital pieces of information into three short sentences; even if it wasn't accurate it would probably still be a very efficient system. (In addition, it's actually an ''aversion'' of [[Defcon Five]]--in naval parlance, 'Condition One' is sealing all compartments in full battle-readiness (as cited in the second paragraph of the trope's main body), so it's a ''correct'' use of jargon.)

** The original 1970's series had this happen regularly too, whenever the Cylons attacked.

{{quote| "...to say nothing of the guards' color codes, which include Red Standby Alert (apparently meaning stand around and do nothing), Red Mobilisation (wander around outside the house), and Blue Mobilisation (allow the President and his daughter to escape in a vintage car accompanied by two terrorists)."}}

* At around the same time, ''[[Chappelles Show]]'' did a similar gag. This was extended in the [[Deleted Scene]] on the DVD, where after several color combos and unusually specific shades, it ended in "The color of these shoes".

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* This practice still goes on today in [[NATO]], where it's called Quick Reaction Alert or QRA for short. The British used it for their V-bombers (which were bombed up), where you possibly had as little as five minutes before nukes started landing, the instruction being take off and head for the "start line" .

** The far more common version of this, on a nearly daily basis during the [[Cold War]] and about monthly now involves fighter jets (usually two) being scrambled to intercept and escort away Soviet/Russian "Bear" bombers who have entered NATO-monitored airspace to test reaction times- i.e. for the fun of it.

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Red Alert]]