Save Sat

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

While a Kill Sat can be called the sword, the Save Sat can be called the shield. This is when a satellite, intentionally or accidentally, crashes into something and helps out the heroes, either saving the protagonists from the Big Bad's superweapon by crashing into the control unit, tipping off the heroes that a huge ship is parked outside earth orbit by the sudden cut in communications, or by providing a distraction to buy the heroes time to think up of a plan.

Different from a Killsat since a Save Sat usually rams into something, and different from a colony drop as in the satellites in question are usually smaller and usually help (or harm) the heroes in their quest instead of causing mass destruction everywhere.

The Save Sat can be anything from a humble communications satellite to a space station.

This can quite possibly be a literal example of Deus Ex Machina and Death From Above.

Examples of Save Sat include:

Anime and Manga

  • The final episode of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: 2nd Gig, the Tachikomas ram the satellite containing their A Is into a nuclear missile to save the lives of their comrades on the ground, all while singing a happy childrens song that symbolizes that they've finally learned of the concept of death, and aren't afraid to die for a good cause.
  • In the English dub of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Kaiba sets the Industrial Illusions satellite to crash into their mainframe, bringing down their computer defenses and allowing him to access the data at Duelist Kingdom (in the Japanese version, he's just using the satellite to hack into the mainframe.)

Film - Live Action

  • Independence Day: The sudden cut in the satellite communications network helps tip off the earthlings that the aliens are coming.

Literature

  • The UNSC station Cradle in Halo: The Fall of Reach, sacrificed with all its crew to absorb a Covenant barrage.

Western Animation

  • Megas XLR: When Megas faces off against a colossal Gloft mecha, a satellite taken down by a wayward missile Coop had fired earlier crashes into the Glorft machine and deactivates it.