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'''Ripley:''' Human?
'''Dallas:''' Unknown.|'''''[[Alien (franchise)|Alien]]'''''}}
This is a common [[Beginning Tropes|opening]] found in [[Speculative Fiction|Sci-Fi]], [[Horror]] and [[Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs|Scifi-Horror]]. This refers to the plot structure wherein the heroes are summoned to respond to a distress call, or occasionally, a non-emergency yet still foreboding request for assistance from an expedition. Equally often, the heroes are investigating the abrupt stoppage of all communications from the site.
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Compare: [[Harbinger of Impending Doom]], [[Doomed Expedition]], [[Bring News Back]], [[Action Survivor]], [[Everybody's Dead, Dave]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime and Manga]] ==
* The segment "Magnetic Rose" in the compilation ''Memories'' has a distress signal, and to sum it up quickly (and neatly, one hopes) it's actually a trap, {{spoiler|designed by the space station's mad computer to lure male victims to fulfill
== [[Film]] ==
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* ''[[Return of the Living Dead]]'' has one of the brain-hungry zombies using the Fake Distress Call variant to order in some food: "Send more paramedics."
** The living characters also use this to a degree, as they ''don't'' admit they're under attack by zombies when they call for help, but by people who've gone murderously insane "like rabies, only it's a lot faster". They're not trying to lure in victims, they just know the emergency responders will never believe the truth.
* [[Unwinnable Training Simulation|The ''Kobayashi Maru'']] scenario from ''[[Star Trek II: The
** As well as featuring the ''Kobayashi Maru'', the new [[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]] movie has the plot kicked off by a distress call to Starfleet from the planet Vulcan.
* ''[[Sunshine (film)|Sunshine]]'' (2007). A distress signal from the original ''Icarus'' causes the ''Icarus II'' to go off the mission.
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* Every once in a while, the plot of an episode of ''[[Farscape]]'' was kicked off by this.
* ''[[Firefly]]'': "They're hurting us...get me out"
** Let's not forget the episode "Bushwhacked". The entire episode is classic example.
*** The "Crybaby" is ''Serenity'''s very own invocation of this trope - a disposable can of junk designed to send out a fake distress call if the crew need to create a diversion.
** And "Out of Gas", though the heroes were the ones sending the signal.
* Varied in the pilot episode of ''[[Lost]]'': while it does not draw the Losties to the island, the distress call alerts them that another group has landed on the island and met with a terrible fate, not to mention that the call has been playing for sixteen years, but no one seems to have responded to it.
* Used in the first two seasons of ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' as a combination [[Couch Gag]] and recap.
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== [[Music]] ==
* [http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/bnewman/songs/lyrics/S-O-S.txt This
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* Used in multiple editions of ''[[Traveller]]'', and its advertising, the distress call, "This is Free Trader Beowulf, calling anyone... Mayday, Mayday..." has become iconic.
* For a low-tech variant, player characters in the original ''D&D'' adventure ''I6: [[Ravenloft]]'' find two versions of a letter from the burgomaster of Barovia: {{spoiler|a genuine Warning Beacon urging everyone to stay away from the vampire-besieged town, and a Fake Distress Call forged by Strahd von Zarovich to attract adventurers he can use in a [[Xanatos Gambit]]}}.
* Used in ''[[Warhammer
== [[Video Games]] ==
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*** That the player doesn't see until the end. Isaac watches it again and again on the way there. Kendra even asks how many more times he'll watch it. {{spoiler|It's just the marker making him forget in order to use him. That's how Kendra knows what's at the end when you're planetside.}}
* In ''[[Escape Velocity]]'', the fake distress call is a trap used by [[Space Pirates]].
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the
* About half of the star systems in ''[[Mass Effect]]'' greet you with beeping distress beacons, one of the more prominent is a fake and is a lure for a Geth ambush. Only a few are received on time to provide any aid.
** Also crops up in {{spoiler|Jacob}}'s loyalty mission in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]''. The strange thing is, the beacon activated 10 years after the ship disappeared...
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