Red Alert: Difference between revisions

 

 

 

The phrase "[[Red Alert]]" comes from the naval tradition of "General Quarters" ("Action Stations" if you're British), where a ship prepares for battle. Much of the procedures are the same. The alert is sounded by a drum or over an intercom. Off-duty sailors report to their stations, cannons are loaded, and the decks are cleared of non-essential items. On modern ships one of the most important steps taken is to close all watertight doors, thus if the ship is holed the leak is contained. See [[Red Alert/Self Demonstrating|Red Alert]] for a wiki version.

* ''[[Doctor Strangelove]]'' was based on a serious [[Cold War]] thriller novel by Peter George entitled... ''Red Alert''.

* In the film ''[[Our Man Flint]]'', after Lloyd Cramden learns that Flint is alive he calls a "Purple Alert".

* ''[[The Final Countdown]]'' featured two onboard the USS ''Nimitz'' aircraft carrier, though the second one was a bit more subdued as it was more of a preparation montage for the subsequent [[Fighter Launching Sequence]].

* Happens twice in the film ''[[The Nightmare Before Christmas]]''.

{{quote| '''Woody''': Yard sale? Sarge! Emergency roll call!<br />

'''Sergeant''': Sir, yes, sir! Red alert! All civilians fall in position now! }}

** Justified in that they set up shot in an old, abandoned, apparently-still-functional, yet remarkably cheap firehouse. The confused look on everyone's face for about 5-10 seconds after the bells start going implies that, in-universe at least, this wasn't part of the plan and Janine just felt like doing it.

* ''[[Master and Commander]]'' had a scene where a young officer, suspecting the enemy ship is nearby in the fog and about to attack, calls "Beat to quarters!" We see the Napoleonic War version of a ship going into Red Alert and the officer's decision proves most prudent as the ship is fired upon and the crew is ready for battle.

** Yellow Alert - When the ship is approaching a potentially dangerous situation.

** Double Red Alert - Extreme and immediate danger, e.g. a bomb on board is about to explode.

** Grey Alert - The ship is running out of fuel and is rationing power to a bare minimum (AKA Condition Grey)

** Tactical Alert - The same as [[Red Alert]], and in fact its ancestor. (In the early years of Starfleet, the first ''[[Enterprise]]'''s systems were not exactly optimized; Red Alert was as much an optimization of emergency systems such as hull plating polarization, allowing said systems to power up in seconds rather than minutes, as it was a warning for the crew.)

* Played straight on ''[[Babylon 5]]'', though notably, while the alarms are sounding loudly throughout the station, warning the station's occupants to seek shelter and the pilots and security guards to prepare for battle, the command center itself is devoid of the alarms and lights. This is to help the command crew avoid any distractions or hindrances to communication, particularly since they're the ones who ''start'' the alarm to begin with.

** Worth noting, how the command crew reacts to the [[Red Alert]] changes over time, probably as they become more experienced with such situations. In one second season battle, they have to close the blast doors covering the command center's picture window just in time to avoid getting a piece of debris sent flying into them. In the third season, as soon as a battle starts, they immediately shut the blast shield (and sure enough, midway through the battle, a crippled enemy fighter crashes into the shield hard enough to cause the internal bulkhead to buckle.

{{quote| '''Rimmer:''' Go to Blue Alert.<br />

(Some time later)<br />

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' avoided [[Red Alert]], despite many of its characters being [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]], primarily because it's set in the modern era or [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]]; the human starships use General Quarters.

** The "Unscheduled Offworld Activation" alert does use spinning red lights and sirens, though.

* The new ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' has the marvelous three-troper:

{{quote| '''Felix Gaeta:''' "[[Red Alert|Action stations, action stations]]. [[Defcon Five|Set Condition One throughout the ship]]. [[This Is Not a Drill]]."}}

* From a review of the ''[[Blake's Seven|Blakes Seven]]'' episode "Bounty":

{{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)."}}

* Briefly featured in the short-lived alien invasion show ''[[Threshold]]'', when the heroes have reason to believe their secret base has been compromised: in addition to the flashing red lights (no klaxon), every regular ceiling light in the building is extinguished and replaced by ''strobes'' for no apparent reason.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* [[Half Life|The Black Mesa Facility]] would like to inform you that pressing the alert button as a joke is not OK, ''Dr. Freeman''. (Not real dialog, just a joke since you can turn it on and piss people off, and later on it is on by default and you can turn it off [[For the Evulz]]).

* In ''[[Star Trek Armada]] II'', alerts contain a different approach, Green alert is were a ship will not attack unless given a strict order to do so (This includes not firing back), Yellow alert will have ships fire at enemy ship's and stations if fired upon, Red alert (Default) has ships attack enemy ships and stations if there in range

* Used reasonably in the ''[[Escape Velocity]]'' series: a warning alarm sounds when a hostile vessel turns its attention on you - and then promptly shuts up, letting you frag the baddies and/or get the heck out of Dodge as appropriate. (If you have an [[Enemy Detecting Radar|IFF Decoder]], you may also get to see the enemy vessel's dot turn red at this moment.)

** This gets annoying really fast, especially at Yellow Alert. All you want is for your minions to walk around armed, in case enemy soldiers show up. So why do you have to keep listening to that annoying klaxon? Editing a game file could probably solve that issue, unless this was intentional so that your minions ''don't'' walk around armed.

* ''[[Bosconian]]'' features a "CONDITION" indicator. If it's "GREEN", that means no enemies are attacking, but it will eventually change to "YELLOW" ("Alert! Alert!"), and you will have to destroy one of the hexagon-like space stations to get it back to "GREEN". Condition "RED!!" (as it appears in-game) only appears if you take too long to complete a stage. During this time, the enemies attack relentlessly, making more likely for you to lose a life.

* In ''[[Halo]] 3'', when a Scarab is about to explode, a submarine klaxon type sound is heard.

* Played straight in ''[[Metroid Prime|Metroid Prime 3: Corruption,]]'' as the ''GFS Olympus'' goes into "Condition Red" during the Space Pirate attack at the beginning of the game.

* In the ''[[Disgaea]]'' series, the arrival of a crew of pirates in the Item World is preceded by the sound of klaxons and the screen flashing red a few times.

* Armor Games' [[Web Game]] ''In3structotank'' during the introductory sequence. As Dirk Danger is drinking coffee a light descends from above and starts flashing red, causing him to do a [[Spit Take]].

 

== Webcomics ==

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* [[Transformers|Red Alert!]] [[Memetic Mutation|WOO WOO WOO WOO!]]

* In ''[[Metalocalypse]]'', the Tribunal calls a "Purple Alert" when Nathan Explosion is elected governor of Florida. It's ''extremely'' irritating.

* ''[[The Herculoids]]'' episode "Prisoners of the Bubblemen". After Dorno frees Zandor and Tarra, the enemy leader orders "Sound the alarm" and a tower starts a lighthouse-like rotating red light at its top, with a whooping siren accompaniment.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

** In particular, the [[Fighter Launching Sequence]] in the first ''Wing Commander'' game is accompanied by a [[Red Alert]] complete with klaxon, even for routine patrol missions.

* [[Spiritual Successor]] ''[[Starlancer]]'' carries on the tradition, with a short cutscene of fighter crews running along the corridor while a red light flashes. One can only assume the Squadron Leader's briefings have a tendency to overrun.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

 

== [[Real Life]] ==