History Main / TheElitesJumpShip

* ''Anime/VoltesV'': When the slaves of Boazania rebel (this time aided by Big Falcon and Voltes V) and manage to overtake most of the planet, the nobles desert en masse as Emperor Zambajil desperately tries to consolidate his power. Prince Heinel curses the nobles for fleeing and vows to cut down all traitors, coming to defend the castle. When Katherine is shot defending him, Heinel is broken and goes OneWingedAngel through [[FirstChurchOfMecha Godol]].

* ''Fanfic/CodePrime'': Near the end of ''R2 - Revolution'', when Starscream announces his intention to just [[FinalSolution completely destroy Earth]] rather than continue to try and subjugate it, the captive Brittanian royals being held prisoner by the Decepticons immediately swear loyalty in exchange for being spared and offered a ride off planet when the Cons leave. According to a derisive Schneizel, many of them have deluded themselves into believing that they can repopulate humanity through incest, ignoring the ''many'' problems that such a small gene pool would create. [[spoiler:And unfortunately for them, they never even get that far, as Megatron responds to Starscream's attempted by coup by unleashing a synthetic Rust Plague, which [[CruelAndUnusualDeath consumes]] not just Starscream but also all of the Britannians as well.]]

** Most of the wealthiest people in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamTheWitchFromMercury'' have gone to space and become the contemptuous ForeignRulingClass of the "Earthians" suffering from world-wide economic depression and food shortages.

* ''{{WebAnimation/RWBY}}'': This is the catalyst for the climax of Volume 7. General Ironwood, overtaken by paranoia due to [[SpannerInTheWorks Cinder]] taunting him and the threat of [[BigBad Salem]] soon arriving at the [[FloatingContinent Floating City]] of Atlas, decides to abandon the remaining unevacuated people of Mantle to raise Atlas up higher (out of Salem's range). [[KnightTemplar He immediately proves willing to get rid of anyone who opposes this decision]]. As Team RWBY refuses to abandon Mantle, he orders [[JustFollowingOrders the Ace-Ops]] to arrest them, [[DividedWeFall puts out warrants for them and their friends]], and [[KickTheMoralityPet tries to execute Oscar for trying to talk him down]]. Add on Cinder delaying Winter's task to become the Winter Maiden long enough for Penny Polendina to take the power instead, and Ironwood is left unable to complete his plans. As the new Maiden is more sympathetic to the protagonists and Mantle, she defects, leaving Ironwood without the means to raise Atlas. RWBY's resistance incapacitates four of his Ace-Ops, while the fifth and leader of their group ends up killed thanks to the conflict allowing [[PracticallyJoker Tyrian]] to escape. And with his forces exhausted from the evacuation that ''had'' been completed before it was abruptly stopped, Ironwood's army is crippled ''just'' as Salem arrives at Atlas' doorstep. [[AllAccordingToPlan Just as Salem wanted.]]

And where are the leaders, the elites, and the best and the brightest during this whole quagmire? The rich and powerful with the money, influence, and the talent to help people through this chaos? [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere Certainly not where the danger is!]] They've jumped ship, gotten on an aircraft and flown to a safe haven, sailed to a private island, locked themselves in a bunker, or all of the above, basically telling the rest of the world: "You're on your own."

** Inverted in the original ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'': As the world suffers from overpopulation and resultant environmental collapse, the elites ''force others to jump ship''. By 0079 (79 years after the space colonies reached a population of 40 million, by which point half of humanity has joined them) anyone born on Earth, regardless of class, are jeered at as "Earth elites" and are the subjects of resentment by the colonists -- occasionally [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized murderously]] [[ColonyDrop so]].

Likely to overlap with WhileRomeBurns or DancingInTheRuins as the characters in question indulge in their decadent personal behavior in response to the chaos around them. Rarely expect anyone involved in this trope to be the [[KickTheDog least bit sympathetic]] and expect them to be a combination of RichJerk, CorruptCorporateExecutive, an UpperClassTwit, AristocratsAreEvil, DirtyCoward, PresidentEvil and his contemporaries, or all of the above. If the aforementioned elites are actually ''responsible'' for the calamity they're running from in the first place, [[MoralEventHorizon any sympathy for them should be thrown right out the window]]. If the world itself is crumbling, WatchTheWorldDie can overlap, but the characters are in the group who happen to be in the upper crust and simply let the rest of the world rot to save their own skins. Or at least try to at everyone else's expense.

* In ''Manga/{{Remina}}'', The Prime Minister of Japan and CEO of the Memishi Corporation abandon Japan with their families for [[DeathWorld Remina]] as soon as it becomes apparent Earth will be destroyed. Naturally, this ends poorly for the lot of them.

* In ''Manga/{{Remina}}'', The Prime Minister of Japan abandons Japan with his family for [[DeathWorld Remina]] as soon as it becomes apparent Earth will be destroyed. Naturally, this ends poorly for the lot of them.

* In ''Anime/FLCLAlternative'', when Medical Mechanica start up their plan to flatten the Earth with their irons many of the rich and powerful board rockets to flee to Mars while leaving the planet to its fate. This includes the smug Japanese Prime Minister occasionally seen through the series and Pets whose family is revealed to be wealthy, forcing her to leave her friends behind, especially after a bad argument with Kana that they sadly never resolve before her departure.

* This trope is what used to happen during most of the plagues in the Middle Ages (such as TheBlackDeath). The rich fled the cities and towns, escaping to their private residences in the countryside in hope that the fresher air there would protect them (it was widely believed at the time that plagues were caused by "corrupted air"). It did protect them to a degree since contagions spread more slowly in less densely populated regions. This is also the premise of the novel ''Literature/TheDecameron''.

Some awful calamity is happening. [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt The world might be ending]]. There's maiming and killing afoot. Cities are on flame ([[Music/BlueOysterCult possibly with rock and roll]]). The Masses are sick, starving, and dying. Screaming and cursing, cries for mercy, the sound of society tearing itself apart. The public is crying out for aid and their leaders to guide them through this catastrophe. It's a horrific situation.

* In ''Manga/{{Remina}}'', The Prime Minister of Japan abandons Japan with his family for [[DeathWorld Remina]] as soon as it becomes apparent Earth will be destroyed. Naturally, this ends poorly for the lot of them.

* In ''Manga/OnePiece'':
** Wapol pulled this when serving as King of the Drum Kingdom when the Blackbeard Pirates arrived. Despite his arrogance, when he learned how strong Blackbeard's crew was, Wapol took his army and ran rather than fight them, leaving his country defenseless.
** As told by Trafagar Law's backstory, the royal family and high-ranked nobles managed to escape from Flevance with assistance of the World Government just before the Amber Lead Syndrome crisis went really bad and the entire country was [[QuarantineWithExtremePrejudice quarantined by force]]. [[KarmaHoudini These included the people who most actively sought out the Amber Lead.]] [[CrapsackWorld Of course.]]

* ''Fanfic/ADifferentWeaselMakesADifference'': While most elites stand their ground during the invasion of the White Walkers, Lord Torrent of Littlesister and his family try to abandon their lands and vassals "without a care in the world." Unfortunately for the family, a Manderly warship stops them as they try to sail to the comparatively safer Riverlands. The male members of the family are escorted back to the Three Sisters islands and placed in a particularly dangerous beachhead position to meet the approaching zombies.

* ''Fanfic/CodePrime'': Near the end of ''R2 - Revolution'', when Starscream announces his intention to just [[FinalSolution completely destroy Earth]] rather than continue to try and subjugate it, the captive Brittanian royals being held prisoner by the Decepticons immediately swear loyalty in exchange for being spared and offered a ride off planet when the Cons leave. According to a derisive Schneizel, many of them have deluded themselves into believing that they can repopulate humanity through incest, ignoring the ''many'' problems that such a small gene pool would create. [[spoiler: And unfortunately for them, they never even get that far, as Megatron responds to Starscream's attempted by coup by unleashing a synthetic Rust Plague, which [[CruelAndUnusualDeath consumes]] not just Starscream but also all of the Britannians as well.]]

* ''Arrow'' a spinoff to ''Fanfic/TheVictorsProject'' has an unpremeditated version of this where said elites come across as less despicable than the people they were bribing. The gangs that control District 6 seize all of the trains to flee District as it descends into anarchy in the first waves of rebellion and retaliatory bombings, handing over seats to "prosperous citizens who hand over everything they own for a chance to escape the rains of fire," while running down others in their path. It is unclear whether any of them make it; only one train is specifically mentioned as being destroyed and this was one filled with fleeing gang members.

* In ''Podcast/ItCouldHappenHere'', it's mentioned in the episode "The American Refugee Crisis" that rich people would be the first to escape the Second American Civil War and the one that would have the least problems with it, being able to buy visas to still-stable European nations.

* Features in the backstory of ''TabletopGame/ChangelingTheDreaming'', as centuries ago the ruling class of Sidhe fled the human world for Arcadia, leaving the other fae to fend for themselves, and only returned recently.

* In Act 2 of ''Theatre/IntoTheWoods'', after the giantess has set upon their castle, the royal family, along with Cinderella's stepfamily, flees the kingdom instead of staying to fight. The finale hints that [[LaserGuidedKarma their fate was, well, not pretty.]]
-->'''Stepmother:''' When going to hide, know how to get there.
-->'''Cinderella's Father:''' And how to get back.
-->'''Florinda & Lucinda:''' And eat first.

* ''{{WebAnimation/RWBY}}'': This is the catalyst for the climax of Volume 7. General Ironwood, overtaken by paranoia due to [[SpannerInTheWorks Cinder]] taunting him and the threat of [[BigBad Salem]] soon arriving at the [[FloatingContinent Floating City]] of Atlas, decides to abandon the remaining unevacuated people of Mantle to raise Atlas up higher (out of Salem's range). [[KnightTemplar He immediately proves willing to get rid of anyone who opposes this decision]]. As Team RWBY refuses to abandon Mantle, he orders [[JustFollowingOrders the Ace-Ops]] to arrest them, [[DividedWeFall puts out warrants for them and their friends]], and [[KickTheMoralityPet tries to execute Oscar for trying to talk him down]]. Add on Cinder delaying Winter's task to become the Winter Maiden long enough for Penny Polendina to take the power instead, and Ironwood is left unable to complete his plans. As the new Maiden is more sympathetic to the protagonists and Mantle, she defects, leaving Ironwood without the means to raise Atlas. RWBY's resistance incapacitates four of his Ace-Ops, while the fifth and leader of their group ends up killed thanks to the conflict allowing [[PracticallyJoker Tyrian]] to escape. And with his forces exhausted from the evacuation that ''had'' been completed before it was abruptly stopped, Ironwood's army is crippled ''just'' as Salem arrives at Atlas' doorstep. [[AllAccordingToPlan Just as Salem wanted.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLEGOMovie2TheSecondPart'': President Business leaves to play golf during the alien invasion at the beginning of the film.

* Played for satire in ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'' episode "The Fried Chicken Flu", when a viral pandemic spreads around the world and (seemingly) causes great sociopolitical chaos. In response, US President UsefulNotes/BarackObama makes an EmergencyPresidentialAddress to calm down the American public, preaching to show compassion and help out their communities, only to reveal that he and his family have gone underground to live in the fully-stocked White House bunker, and have essentially let the rest of America rot.
-->'''President Obama:''' In conclusion, I wanna say that we are all in for some tough times ahead. And when I say ''we'', I mean ''you''.

* During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, United Kingdom propaganda promoted the idea of "In It Together", in which groups of people from all walks of life gathered in the London Underground to get through the war (and the German bombing of London) together. This was a reversal from their reaction early in the Blitz, when the Tube was locked up to ''prevent'' people from sheltering there - and to stop them reaching the wealthier areas of London where the rich could take shelter in, for instance, the basement shelters of grand hotels. The Savoy had a shelter it advertised as "The Smartest in London"; some shelters had bars and restaurant service (Hotels were exempted from rationing) and at least one had a gaming room so patrons could gamble while they waited out the bombing. Meanwhile, surface shelters intended to provide some protection for the working classes were so cheaply built that children could push the bricks out of the wall with their hands; they were overcrowded, had no toilet facilities, and became known as [[https://childreninthesecondworldwar.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/the-morrison-sandwich/ "Morrison Sandwiches"]], named after the then Home Secretary, because a nearby bomb hit could blow out the brick walls and drop the solid concrete slab that comprised the ceiling onto those sheltering inside. These blatant injustices were at least somewhat corrected as the Blitz went on - the Sandwiches were mostly pulled down as not fit for purpose, the Tube was no longer locked and had fold-up bunks installed to enable more people to sleep there - but in truth, less than .1% of London's citizens actually gathered in the Underground (7000 out of 8 million residents), and these people were almost entirely poor and working-class. The rich elites, who either owned or could afford to build their own bunkers, were still waiting things out in relative comfort. The Tube was safer than most shelters, but a direct hit above a station could drop chunks of the ceiling onto those sheltering there, and there were a few freakish tragedies where bombs just happened to drop at exactly the right spot and at exactly the right angle to travel down the escalator tunnels, detonating inside the stations and killing hundreds. The Government did issue kits to build your own [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raid_shelter#Anderson_shelter Anderson Shelter]], free to any family earning less than £5 a week; for those earning more, the kits cost £7. Morrison got another type of shelter named for him; the much more effective [[https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30082790 Morrison Table Shelter]], which could serve as a dining table during the day and be quickly converted into a steel-framed bomb shelter during raids, intended for those who had no garden in which to place an Anderson.

* ''[[Creator/Antony444 A Different Weasel Makes A Difference]]'': While most elites stand their ground during the invasion of the White Walkers, Lord Torrent of Littlesister and his family try to abandon their lands and vassals "without a care in the world." Unfortunately for the family, a Manderly warship stops them as they try to sail to the comparatively safer Riverlands. The male members of the family are escorted back to the Three Sisters islands and placed in a particularly dangerous beachhead position to meet the approaching zombies.

** Likewise, most of the wealthiest people in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamTheWitchFromMercury'' have gone to space and become the contemptuous ForeignRulingClass of the "Earthians" suffering from world-wide economic depression and food shortages.

* ''Fanfic/CodePrime'': Near the end of ''R2 - Revolution'', when Starscream announces his intention to just [[FinalSolution completely destroy Earth]] rather than continue to try and subjugate it, the captive Brittanian royals being held prisoner by the Decepticons immediately swear loyalty in exchange for being spared and offered a ride off planet when the Cons leave. According to a derisive Schneizel, many of them have deluded themselves into believing that they can repopulate humanity through incest, ignoring the ''many'' problems that such a small gene pool would create.

!!Examples:

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/BatmanNoMansLand:''
** In the ''Contagion'' story that leads up to ''No Man's Land,'' when a group of Gotham one-percenters learn that a dangerous virus has reached the city, they send away their servants and lock themselves inside a penthouse to engage in debauchery while riding it out. One of them already has the virus, and things go downhill for them from there.
** Right before an earthquake-ravaged Gotham City is quarantined and all disaster relief is discontinued, most of the city's upper class flee. Much of its lower class is unable to afford to do the same.
** Many of the people with money who remain in Gotham (a mixture of elites and criminals) end up paying a crime lord named Shank enormous sums of money to smuggle them out of the city several months into the disaster. He takes all of their valuables and then locks them in a cellar to cannibalize each other.
** Bruce Wayne ''pretends'' to have done this when he's actually still in Gotham helping out as Batman.
* ''{{ComicBook/Blacksad}}'': In ''Red Dawn'', Blacksad gets out of trouble with Senator Gallo (a Senator [=McCarthy=] {{expy}}) by threatening to reveal Gallo's plan to build bunkers to survive the upcoming (according to Gallo) nuclear war with the Soviets. Bunkers that are pointedly too small for all of America's population but just big enough for its politicians.
* ''ComicBook/{{Crossed}}'':
** Future [[TheQuisling traitor to humanity]] Cody made a living building luxury survival bunkers for doomsday peppers before the ZombieApocalypse, describing them as places for useless people to survive. That being said, the residents of said bunkers themselves are treated with a little sympathy, not having saved their lives at the expense of anyone else's, with the two portrayed as being this trope the best being killed by Cody for this attitude, and being killed by infected right at the door respectively. Ultimately, the bunkers don't provide long-term protection against fully-sapient {{Technically Living Zombie}}s which can find the air ducts and block them off to force the residents to die from suffocation or take their chances outside.
** Largely subverted with The British Prime Minister and his staff in ''The Thin Red Line'' Arc: They do quickly retreat to a heavily fortified bunker, but continue to try and coordinate with the military to protect civilians, and study the source of the virus out of the hopes of stopping the creatures.
** The trope is also surprisingly averted by movie producer/crime lord Curtis Wentz, who has an uncharted island to flee to but claims to have experienced a HeelFaithTurn (whether or not this is true is a major question throughout the arc) and sends women and children of all classes to his island instead of fleeing there himself.
** A disfigured man claiming to be Prince Harry of the Royal Family says that his family was also evacuated to a bunker, only to find it overrun upon arrival.
* The ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' story "World's Greatest" introduces Nu-Earth, an entire duplicate Earth intended to serve as a refuge in case the original is irreparably damaged or destroyed, which was created by a top-secret group of scientists and financed by the world's wealthiest people. The FF is initially told that Nu-Earth is meant to accommodate the entire human population. However, one of the project's top scientists (an ex-girlfriend of Reed Richards') discovers that only the "world's elite" (totaling half a million people) are going to be allowed to travel there and that the majority of the human race will be left to rot on a dead or dying planet. The FF help foil this plan by transporting refugees from a future where Earth was devastated beyond repair to the planet instead.
-->'''Alyssa:''' I thought this was all a noble mission, but you've got to see their plans, Sue. Their '''disdain''' for people. It's like something out of a movie.
* ''ComicBook/Earth2'': In issue #21, Superman's clone stops a space ark carrying the world's most wealthy and powerful individuals from leaving the Earth and rips the ship apart, sending the passengers plummeting to their deaths. "The one percent trickles down"
* ''ComicBook/LeTransperceneige'' (The Snow-Piercer): Like the film and TV series based on it, the comics follow the elite lording over the various trains and preserving their privileges. It's subverted in the ambiguously-canon Jean-Marc Rochette prequel comics though, where the billionaire creator of the train (or at least ''a'' train) announces his belief that there will be an ecological disaster to the world and offers everyone the chance to apply to be on his train and be judged by merit. So far, it's unclear if this vision was corrupted or his train is simply a contrast to the other ones.
* In the ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'', the Pride are a cabal of rich supervillain couples who intend to destroy the world on behalf of a trio of fallen angels... while ensuring that their own children get to live in the paradise that the angels promised to build in the ruins. Said kids (most of them anyway) are not happy to find this out.
* In the ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'' story "Dark Justice", with Mega-City One becoming an increasingly unlivable hellhole ([[WretchedHive moreso than usual]]), the city's wealthiest decide to leave the Earth on a GenerationShip to find an off-world colony to populate. They didn't get very far because the [[OmnicidalManiac Dark Judges]] hitched a ride.
* Ultimately subverted in ''ComicBook/YTheLastMan'': After all men are wiped out by the {{Gendercide}} plague, the RightWingMilitiaFanatic characters suspect that it's a government bioweapon and that the elite leadership of the country is hunkered down in a bunker plotting to take over someday. A surviving (female) General also thinks the disaster was caused by a bio-weapon meant to be used against China and it's eventually revealed that there is a bunker that the American government was supposed to flee to. When the protagonists finally reach that bunker though, they are informed that, whatever the cause of the plague was, none of the elites survived long enough to reach the bunker.
* The main plot of ''Post Americana'' is driven by the existence of The Bubble, an UndergroundCity built out of the NORAD bunker, to provide a place for government officials and social elites to comfortably ride out nuclear war and then rebuild the country. The only problem is that when the war did come, no one from the government ever arrived, leaving just the rich to live idly while an indentured servant class developed out of the people manually maintaining the place, and America was reduced to a post-apocalyptic wasteland. And then one day a few generations in, a VisionaryVillain emerged from the upper class of the Bubble's population, declared himself President, and decided to reclaim America by means of slaughtering all other survivor communities.
* ''ComicBook/ThePunisherTheEnd'' takes place an unspecified amount of time after an unlimited nuclear war with China resulting in the world is on fire. Frank (who'd been imprisoned in Sing Sing) escapes with another convict and heads for a bunker in New York built by another inmate ([[ShootTheBuilder or rather, was thrown into Sing Sing by the people he'd built it for]]). Once inside the (formerly rich and powerful) occupants explain that while there were several such bunkers around the world, they've all gone silent (the last one from the Presidential bunker apparently involved rape), and there's a good chance everyone in the bunker is all that's left of humanity. Frank kills them all anyway, then goes outside to wait to be reunited with his family.
* In ''ComicBook/JudgmentDayMarvelComics'', when the Progenitor judges humanity unworthy and starts the destruction of Earth and the human race, a spaceship holding the wealthy leaves Earth in an attempt to escape and survive. The Progenitor nukes it out of orbit - ''no one'' gets out of his judgement.
* An issue of Zenescope's ''Grimm Tales of Terror'' anthology series is a SettingUpdate to ''Masque of the Red Death'', replacing the castle full of nobles with a hermetically-sealed mansion being used as a bunker by its owner and his rich friends to comfortably sit out the end of the world. [[spoiler: Then a man and his newborn daughter, both of them TheImmune to ThePlague, stumble on the mansion, and the daughter is kidnapped and brought inside by the owner's mentally unstable wife. This brings along the virus, which quickly infects and kills everyone inside.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* Subverted in ''Film/ThirteenDays'', set during the UsefulNotes/CubanMissileCrisis, when Robert Kennedy is discussing the evacuation plans that have been put in place for the White House staffers and their families. Special [=IDs=] have been issued, and when notification calls are made, they will meet at designated staging areas to be transported to the Mount Weather bunker, where those on duty at the White House will meet them later... but all this is just for morale because if a nuclear missile is actually launched from Cuba it will only take five minutes to reach Washington.
* In ''Film/TwoThousandTwelve'', the social and political elite flee to secretly built Arks to save themselves and leave the rest of the world to rot, even the builders of the Arks. The governments of the world knew beforehand of the calamity that would cause planetary upheaval and countless death but didn't tell anyone even after it started, assassinating everyone who tried to tell people the truth, except for obvious nutjobs like Charlie Frost. Explained as being the only way they could build any Arks without the place being swarmed by refugees, terrorists, renegade army units, etc. that would jeopardize any humans surviving. Though a message is later sent out to the rich and elite to make their way to China so they can board boats and literally ride out the coming apocalypse. The main character, a lowly limo driver/struggling novelist, manages to stumble on the plot by complete accident and seeks to get his family on board as well.
* ''Film/CaptiveState'': The aliens' resource exploitation threatens to leave Earth a husk and at least some of their high society collaborators are aware of this and hope to be taken off-planet for their service.
* Proposed in ''Film/DrStrangelove'' when it is suggested that the military and political elite retreat to deep mine shafts to avoid the coming nuclear war. Since they are older men, it's suggested that they take 10 young women each to restock humanity. The Doomsday device wipes them all out before the idea can be implemented.
* ''Film/{{Chariot}}'': The setting is a plane designed to evacuate 191 people of power and importance (and not their families) in the event of a nuclear strike without their knowledge. Yet when the plane takes off only 7 passengers, some of them unimportant, are aboard. In the end, it turns out there has been no catastrophe, and their only onboard to test whether or not the idea would work without the passengers rioting. It doesn't.
* ''Film/TheColony2021'': Earth's wealthy fled to a new planet as cataclysms ravaged Earth but are forced to contemplate returning to Earth due to [[SterilityPlague women being unable to get pregnant on their new homeworld.]]
* ''Film/Contagion2011'': Downplayed. The government is largely portrayed positively but there is one scene when recourses needed for an important CDC scientist are instead hogged by a sick congressman. Other politicians also relocate underground although by that point there's not much they could do by staying up there without getting sick and there is an implicit need for ''someone'' in power to remain healthy to avoid anarchy.
* ''Film/DontLookUp'': The HateSink politicians and industrialists who greedily bungle the efforts to destroy a meteor approaching Earth flee in a luxurious starship before Earth is destroyed. [[LaserGuidedKarma They get attacked by native animals as soon as they land on a new planet.]]
* In ''Film/{{Elysium}}'', the people living on the space station Elysium are the wealthy and TheBeautifulElite, due to being far away from the harsh environment on Earth, not having to lift a finger to work, and especially due to the advanced healing machines they have access to. Earth is devastated and overpopulated and the people who still live on it are destitute and sick. The Elysium population do not care about the people on Earth and will stop at nothing to maintain the distinct separation between the two classes of people and prevent immigration.
* ''Film/EndOfTheWorld:'' As a solar flare threatens the world, a scientist tasked with building survival bunkers is put in a mental institution for protesting about how the bunker space is being reserved for rich people. The GenreSavvy main characters are quick to compare the situation to ''Film/TwoThousandTwelve.''
* ''Film/{{Greenland}}:'' Referenced and downplayed. When the government selects people to be evacuated to shelters before a ColonyDrop, Ralph complains that they're probably all rich people. Actually, the government is picking people based on their skills to rebuild society (and none of them have any idea the evacuation is going on until right before the cataclysm). Still, at least some of them (such as John, a building engineer with a nice house, and Colin's mother, a doctor) have jobs with upper-class incomes.
* In the opening scene of ''Film/TheHobbitTheBattleOfTheFiveArmies'', the Master of Laketown loads all his treasure up in a boat and flees the town as Smaug attacks. This amusingly gets him LaserGuidedKarma: when Bard kills Smaug, the dying dragon lands on the Master's boat, sinking it and crushing everyone on board.
* ''Film/HotelArtemis'' dances around this but remains true to the principle. During a city-wide riot caused by class divisions, the local millionaires hunker down or flee town while sending their servants to brave the crowds with the hidden valuables they want safely stashed at the bank.
* ''Film/KingsmanTheSecretService''; lightly zig-zagged, as it's less that they're all jumping ship and more that some of them are choosing to sign up with, and some are just being kidnapped by, the BigBad. The film implies that the President of the United States, most of the British Royal Family, and Elon Musk are all on board.
* ''Film/LandOfTheDead'': The ZombieApocalypse survivors in Pennsylvania are holed up inside of CitadelCity with a FantasticCasteSystem between the rich and poor. Once that city is breached, the leader of the wealthy elites orders that the poor people be left for themselves, shoots and loots a co-leader who argued with this proposal, and then tries to flee in a limo with all the money he has.
* ''Film/MiracleMile'': This trope is referenced and used in order to ''avert'' a CassandraTruth situation. A guy named Harry trying to meet his girlfriend at a diner gets a wrong number call from a soldier telling him that America and Russia are shooting missiles at each other and World War III is upon them. Harry goes inside the diner and tells everyone else what he heard. As the patrons skeptically debate about his claim, a businesswoman named Landa takes out her phone and tries to dial all of the local politicians she knows, discovering that they've all abruptly fled the country without so much as a warning to the public. This convinces most of the people in the diner to make a beeline out of town themselves and/or try to warn people. Interestingly, they themselves arguably kick off a second wave of this (making a list of Mensa members and scientists to alert to flee and rebuild society elsewhere, and warning a lot of Yuppie friends of Landa who are seen waiting on a helipad) although TheLawOfConservationOfDetail and the fact that masses of people are seen finding out and trying to get out of the city by the end indicate that non-elites were warned off-screen as well.
* ''Film/NoBladeOfGrass'': As most of the world descends into starvation and anarchy after the death of most plants, a radio report mentions that various European monarchs and government officials have fled to North America and received asylum.
* In ''Film/ResidentEvilTheFinalChapter'' the upper echelons of the Umbrella Corporation are waiting out the ZombieApocalypse as {{Human Popsicle}}s in [[ElaborateUndergroundBase The Hive]]. It's revealed that they deliberately released the T-virus in the first place, thinking the world was inevitably doomed through nuclear war or environmental disaster, so this way they got to do it on their terms.
* In ''Film/{{Snowpiercer}}'', the titular train was originally intended to save only the richest people and those who served them and maintained their lifestyles after an experimental attempt to stop global warming ended up causing an ice age. It's only down to luck that lower-class people managed to find the train and seek refuge aboard.
* ''Film/StakeLand'': In the backstory, it's mentioned that America's politicians fled to save themselves when the vampire outbreak hit its peak rather than attempt to provide leadership.
* ''Film/ThorLoveAndThunder'': When Gorr the God Butcher began his rampage, the most powerful and influential gods retreated to Omnipotence City, where they could wait in safety and decadence for him to die. The death of lower gods like Rapu and the chaos created by their passing are of no concern to a god such as Zeus.
* ''Film/Titanic1943'': This film features the director of the White Star line and the British first-class passengers causing the collision with the iceberg through greedy recklessness and then taking all of the lifeboats off the sinking ship in the most selfish and cruel way possible. The fact that this was a ''Nazi Propaganda movie'' has not kept this version of events from recurring through popular culture while ignoring other factors such as the fact that many of the first-class passengers did in fact stay and die while others left the ship before the scope of the disaster was realized.
* ''Film/WhenWorldsCollide'': Both played straight and averted. CorruptCorporateExecutive Leland Stanton will only finance the (very limited) HomeworldEvacuation in exchange for himself being included in it, but two other construction tycoons, Marsden and Spiro, finance it while explicitly stating that they ''don't'' want any seats on the rocket wasted on them. In the end, Stanton ends up being forced to stay behind to ensure the rocket has enough fuel.

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/TheThreeInvestigators:'' In ''The Blazing Cliffs'', unpopular businessman Charles Barron is convinced that society is on the verge of collapse, and has withdrawn to a well-maintained self-sufficient ranch as he waits for his beliefs to be vindicated. A group of conmen fake a BenevolentAlienInvasion and offer to take Barron, his wife, and their valuables off-planet before an imminent war and then bring them back to Earth to be leaders of society once the war is over. Barron is prepared to follow their instructions (although to be fair, he does think that his employees will be fairly safe back on the ranch, and many of them already think the whole thing is fishy) before being convinced that he's being conned.
-->'''Ranch Foreman Hank Detweiler:''' Why should they want Barron? He's no genius. He's rich, that's all. Do the rich go first class even on Doomsday?
* ''Literature/{{Artillerymen}}'': While it’s fairly understandable that all but a few of the mostly wealthy civilians on the ''Tiger'' feel more vulnerable than the soldiers and want to evacuate to safer territory (especially since some of them have families with them), the fact that they take their big bags of luggage with them instead of preserving room on the ship for the soldiers is less understandable. The ship they're on also abandons the soldiers still ashore after a while, although that is at least partially Colonel Wicklow's decision and not theirs. They end up blindly heading straight into Dom territory and end up tortured to death or sold into slavery.
* In ''Literature/TheLightFantastic'', a massive fire breaks out in Ankh-Morpork. The citizens from the richer quarters across the river are seen [[SarcasmMode ''heroically'']] chopping down the bridges to prevent refugees from invading to reach safety.
* ''Literature/Flood1979'' : When a fracturing dam threatens to flood a lower class Latino neighborhood, the authorities plan to flood a (largely evacuated) wealthy neighborhood on the outskirts of town to divert some of the water. Many of its residents are unhappy about losing their houses, and one who refuses to evacuate tries to bribe an engineer to sabotage the diversion.
* Attempted in the final novel of ''Literature/TheInterdependency''. Once the leaders of several Guild Houses were convinced there really ''was'' a problem, their plan was to evacuate themselves and their families to the one place that would survive the upcoming collapse and leave the commoners to die.
* In ''Literature/WorldWarZ'', a few prominent examples are seen:
** The CorruptCorporateExecutive who has touted what turns out to be a false treatment runs off to a private island rented from Russia in order to escape prosecution as well as the zombies.
** In a clearer example of this trope, a huge group of A-list celebrities, most of them famous -- with a lot of NoCelebritiesWereHarmed going on -- take refuge in a beautiful, reinforced mansion on Long Island... [[IdiotBall which is broadcasting 24/7 to the people]]. [[TemptingFate In an inevitable turn of events]], hundreds of desperate refugees break into the mansion looking for some form of solace or shelter, the scene descends into chaos and anarchy, and most (if not all) of the elites are killed and their bodyguards and other servants abandon it.
** [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethII Queen Elizabeth II]] is noted as being an incredibly rare subversion, as in-universe, she refuses to leave the UK during the zombie attacks, although she sends her family to a more secure area.
** The Chinese government remains stationed in a secure bunker while issuing chaotic and bizarre commands which whittle down the army outside, "ordering wave after wave of conscripted teenagers into battle." It gets to the point where a rebel coalition begins fighting a two-front war between them and the zombies before nuking their bunker.
** The South African government retreats to a bunker where they finalize a solution that involves a TheNeedsOfTheMany sacrifice, although it is noted that at least one of the cabinet members there would "rather be fighting in the streets than cowering in a bunker" and is only there due to orders.
** Also defied by Israel, who wall off their entire country but first invite others to come while there's still time.
* In the first book of ''Literature/TheAshesSeries'' book, President-elect Hilton Logan is faced with a nuclear war being caused by WesternTerrorists who are partially motivated by the sleazy actions Logan took to become president and his plans for the future of the country. The terrorists have murdered the president pro tempore and most of his chain of succession. Rather than stay in Washington D.C. and try to help the joint chiefs of staff resolve the crisis, Logan promptly flees to the countryside, waits until the missile exchange has ended, and then emerges, asserting his right to rule over what's left of America, and sending the brunt of the surviving military after anyone who won't recognize his authority.
* ''Literature/BlackTideRising'':
** Zigzagged with Tom Smith (the main character's brother) and his banker and pharmaceutical associates: They put a lot of effort into trying to stem the original outbreak, but they also set up fallback areas to flee to and ride things out for if/when that fails.
** Social media CEO [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Mick Mickerburg]] gathered up an enormous yacht filled with his fellow executives, lots of scantily clad women, PrivateMilitaryContractor bodyguards, cooks, and luxury items and went sailing off to try and ride things out at sea, like so many others. His bodyguards then attempted to mutiny and rape, rob, and kill everyone else, and rescue ships that arrive some time later find just two survivors.
** In the short story "Descent into the Underworld," Italian villagers come into conflict with the inhabitants of a nearby ElaborateUndergroundBase (complete with a movie theater and swimming pool) inhabited by wealthy American doomsday preppers. A year after the ZombieApocalypse, the PrivateMilitaryContractors guarding the bunker and at least some of the rich families inside it plan to steal the village's harvest. They also kidnap a child as a ReplacementGoldfish for a family whose daughter drowns in the pool.
** In the short story "Chase the Sunset," several Canadian soldiers discuss a list of their upcoming assignments. One of those assignments is liberating a six hundred-foot-deep bunker that houses the Canadian prime minister, a [=NORAD=] general, ten members of Parliament, and "assorted aides, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives and mistresses."
* Demonstrated by the Indian Prime Minister in ''Literature/EndersShadow''. In the second book, ''Shadow Of The Hegemon'', when the Indian Empire finds itself set up for invasion and conquest by China thanks to Achilles, the Indian Prime Minister flees the country rather than be caught by China. The third book sees Virlomi, an Indian graduate of Battle School, successfully free India, then deny the Prime Minister's claim of a government in exile and assume power herself, stating that it is a leader's job to protect their people, not run to safety and leave them to despots.
* In Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's ''Literature/TheMasqueOfTheRedDeath'' a wealthy duke and his fellow nobles attempt to wait out a deadly plague decimating the populace by holding a constant party in a secluded abbey. [[EverybodyDiesEnding It doesn't work out well for them]], with the AnthropomorphicPersonification of the plague itself arriving to kill them all.
* The setting of ''Literature/TheCompound'' is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a compound]], built underground for wealthy magnate Ray Yanakakis and his family, including protagonist Eli, to live in during the event of nuclear fallout. It's a massive, luxurious place with a lot of rooms and tech, created specifically so the family can survive while the rest of the world dies. The story deconstructs this by revealing that two of the family members weren't able to make it into the compound and got left behind, the fact that they're running out of edible food due to being there for ''years'', and it all turns out that there were never nukes dropped at all, meaning they had no ship to jump ''from''.
* Done horribly in the ''Dark Skies'' book of the ''Literature/DarkShores'' series. When the enemy Derin, who worship [[GodOfEvil the Seventh god]], cross the wall and invade Mudamora, most of the aristocrats flee the capital Mudaire by ships, leaving the common people to suffer and starve. Made worse by the fact that at night Mudaire's skies are filled with Deimos, a kind of flying demonic horses, which kill anyone who is out in the open. Deimos also make fleeing Mudaire on foot impossible and for the same reason, very few ships with supplies come to the city's harbor. As a result, prices of shelter and food go up very steeply and common people are reduced to spending nights in overcrowded public shelters and [[ReducedToRatburgers eating rats (as long as rats last).]]
* In ''Literature/SixWakes'', it's mentioned that most of the {{Human Popsicle}}s who signed on to the ''Dormire'''s voyage to Tau Ceti did so, in part, because the Earth is starting to become a CrapsackWorld thanks to GaiasLament. Hence the quote above.
* ''Literature/DownInTheDark'': Rodrigo Durrell and Ms. Rhinehart, the two cabinet secretaries in charge of space exploration, managed to go to the Moon with their families on an "inspection tour" right before the dangerous asteroid intercept that ended up destroying Earth. The narrator views the two with slight contempt and notes that Rhinehart's daughter is the only five-year-old human left in the universe.
* This is the core plot of ''Literature/AtlasShrugged'', as elite businessmen and industrialists disappear from the world stage in protest of growing socialist policies, forming their own community called Galt's Gulch. By author Creator/AynRand's Objectivism philosophy, as well as the HumansAreBastards nature of the populace, they're considered the ''heroes'' of the story.
** Some fans of the book will occasionally talk of "Going Galt", i.e. abandoning civilisation as described in the novel[[note]]... although without the magical, thermodynamics-defying motor, invisibility cloak, and everything else that the novel creates in order to prop up the idea[[/note]]. On those rare occasions that they follow through, [[https://www.vice.com/en/article/bn53b3/atlas-mugged-922-v21n10 it doesn't tend to end well]].
* In the backstory of ''Literature/TheReclamationProject'' humans abandoned the surface of the Earth when civilization collapsed, moving up to flying cities held in the air by anti-gravity.
* Occurred in the backstory of the ''Literature/{{Wayfarers}}'' series; when Earth's biosphere collapsed, the wealthy elite took off to colonize Mars instead, while those left behind were forced to cannibalize the remaining cities into the {{Generation Ship}}s of the Exodus Fleet and wander the galaxy until some friendly aliens found them. There's still a bit of tension about this between the descendants of the two groups.
* ''Atlantis Found'', one of the ''Literature/DirkPittAdventures'' has a cabal of ultra-wealthy Nazi descendants getting an inkling of a meteor that will come to destroy Earth and spending the next several decades focused on building immensely durable and luxurious cruise ships for themselves and their followers. And when further calculations show the meteor won't hit Earth after all they decide to ''cause'' a disaster of similar magnitude by using nanotechnology to disrupt the Earth's crust so they can still wipe out everyone besides their empire. On a smaller note, when the U.S. military attacks their headquarters, it's noted that members of the founding family think nothing of using their guards as CanonFodder in an effort to ensure their own survival and escape.
* In ''Literature/{{Colony}}'' once the ship starts malfunctioning, the leaders off the ship (save its PuppetKing) prepare to flee in a very small escape pod without allowing any public debate on who else gets to come with them. Most of them get talked out of it though. It ends up being a moot point, as the [[SinisterMinister ship's chaplain]] takes the pod for himself and the ship's prostitutes. The book's basic premise could be considered this trope as well, with the elites in question being the top experts in their fields being sent out to find a new home for the human race with the rest to follow, which apparently never happened.
* ''Literature/TheFort2022'': The bunker the kids find has lots of food, records, and movies inside and was built about forty years ago by an eccentric millionaire, who evidently didn't plan on sharing it with anyone else in his life, since no one else knows about it. There's also a video cassette with recorded insults for any potential foreign invaders who might have found the bunker if he died before making it there.
* ''Literature/SpyHigh'':
* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends:''In, ''The Chaos Connection'', a newscaster mentions that the President, Vice-President and Joint Chiefs have secluded themselves in an underground bunker even as the government tells citizens not to worry about the escalating terrorist attacks.
** The second book of the ''Literature/JediAcademyTrilogy'' has the Cardia star system (essentially the Empire's West Point on a planetary scale) about to go nova, and the governor being one of the first to make a run for it while ordering the evacuation to be conducted on basis of rank, and there being no indication of anyone high-ranking arguing with this idea and letting their subordinates go first.
** ''Literature/NewJediOrder:'' When the bloodthirsty Yuuzhan Vong hordes prepare to invade Coruscant, wealthy and corrupt senators flee in droves, sometimes forcing vital military assets required to evacuate civilians or HoldTheLine to act as their escorts. That being said, many senators don't run and are killed or captured, or only evacuated at the last minute. Unfortunately, one prominent surviving senator in the latter category is still an obstructive anti-Jedi {{Jerkass}} whose profile is enhanced by his bravery.
** ''Literature/StarWarsLightOfTheJedi'': Bell and Loden find a rich family and their guards loading up a massive starship with luxuries rather than taking refugees aboard and quickly intimidate them into stopping this.
--->'''Chief Guard:''' What do you think you're going to do, Jedi? Cut right through the walls with your lightsaber? Fight off every one of us?\\
'''Loden:''' [[BadassBoast Sure. Why not?]]
* The Literature/LiadenUniverse novel ''Crystal Dragon'' is set during an interstellar war; when the invading enemy armies start getting near the planet Solcintra, the rich and powerful buy up all available shipping and take off for fortified hiding places farther from the battlefront, leaving the rest of the population to take their chances. (The fortified hiding places get wiped out, while the remnant population of Solcintra work together and survive.)
* ''Literature/WhenWorldsCollide'': Attempted but averted when a rich wall street tycoon tries to buy his way into the HomeworldEvacuation with [[WorthlessYellowRocks now worthless money]] despite having refused to finance the building of the rocket ship earlier. He gets laughed out of there.
* Creator/BenElton's ''Stark'' revolves around the uncovering of a conspiracy by the wealthy to escape Earth - which is dying from global warming and associated ecological catastrophes - and set up a new home on the Moon. [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor Although the elite's plan comes to fruition they soon discover that their new life is lonely and frustrating]]. This leads to the story's main antagonist throwing himself out of an airlock.
* ''Literature/TheLostFleet'': While it doesn't happen all the time, there are multiple occasions when, after a Syndic planet insists on picking a fight with Geary's fleet, Geary observes the military, political and business leaders of the planet retreating to various bunkers or moons while leaving the common soldiers and workers behind to die. Whenever this happens he tries to specifically target wherever said elites fled to while often specifically ignoring those they abandoned. In both the final book of the original series and the ''Literature/TheLostStars'' sequel series, CEO (later President) Iceni and General Drakon of the Midway system both specifically avert this by not abandoning their system in the face of enemy bombardment and/or alien invasions (although they are briefly tempted), choosing to remain behind (and execute a few CorruptCorporateExecutive's who they do catch trying to flee themselves) and share their planets fate, [[KarmicJackpot which builds their prestige when the day is saved]].
* ''Literature/{{Flood}}'': As the Earth is slowly flooded, MegaCorp CEO Nathan Lammockson engages in a little bit of this; setting up first a secret city for an affluent minority in the Andes Mountains, then a self-sustaining cruise ship, an underwater habitat and also a small-scale HomeworldEvacuation, all of which experience at least some problems. None of these are ''just'' for Elites, but they do contain a fair number of them (with Nathan pulling some strings to get a woman pregnant with his grandchild aboard the spaceship). This causes problems on the spaceship where everyone on the crew is supposed to have necessary skills.
* ''Literature/{{Wool}}'': In the backstory, members of the American government used a super weapon to wipe out everyone in the world except for a couple hundred thousand Americans they'd put in silo-like survival bunkers that they'd spent years making in preparation of the event, feeling that their actions are necessary to keep humanity from being destroyed by a war. Notably, the vast majority of the people they got to go into the silos went in under false pretenses and had no idea that the world was going to end. Zigzagged if you accept the sequels and prequels as canon, given that they state that the original people behind the slaughter ''are still alive and running things'' due to [[HumanPopsicle having themselves frozen for cryogenic shifts]] and some of them eventually plan to blow up 49 of the 50 silos (including their own) in order to completely destroy knowledge of the old world.
* ''Literature/SwanSong'': With the threat of WWIII, timeshare survivalist bunkers have become a major thing, with middle and upper-class people paying $50,000 a year to stay there two weeks a year in the event that those two weeks will be ones the war starts in. [[TeensAreMonsters Roland]] and his family are in one such bunker which does not fare well due to the owners [[CuttingCorners having dragged their feet on costly, but important repairs]].
* ''The Tower'', one of two books which ''Film/TheToweringInferno'' was based on, acknowledges the mindset behind this trope but largely averts it. A skyscraper is on fire, and the people in the penthouse are being evacuated by breach buoys but there isn't enough time to save everyone. The women are sent out first, then the leaders of the group (the mayor, the governor, a senator, one of the building's architects, the fire commissioner, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations) have a lottery to determine which of the men go in what order. One of the other people involved (another senator, Cary Wycoff) who's been excluded from the decision-making for being obnoxious and a bit panicky, becomes paranoid that the drawing is being rigged so that the governor, the architect, and the others will be among the first sent out and leads a riot against them which temporarily disrupts the rescue operations. Ironically, the drawing wasn't rigged (and Wycoff's own mental justification for what he's doing comes a lot closer to "elites jumping ship" mentality), every one of those leaders Wycoff is paranoid about drew a number which means they'll be evacuated later than he will, and most of them die before the rescue operations can be finished.
* ''Literature/UnderTheDome'': When Big Jim Rennie -- acting town leader, prosperous used car salesman, and local drug kingpin -- sees a cataclysmic explosion caused by the chemicals he'd stockpiled for cooking enormous amounts of crystal meth tearing through the town, he immediately retreats to the town hall's fallout shelter with a single {{Mook}} and makes no effort to alert the other survivors (most of whom die from smoke inhalation within hours) to take shelter there. [[LaserGuidedKarma Unfortunately for Rennie, there isn't enough air to last long]].
* ''Literature/VariableStar'': The Conrad family, the wealthiest people in the galaxy, develop a faster-than-light starship they use to escape Earth with a few servants when the sun goes nova. They catch up with Joel's GenerationShip and offer to help save its people. Some of them are sincere, but Richard is just planning to steal the ship's supplies and then abandon the people onboard.
* In Creator/AlexanderBelyaev's ''The Leap into the Void'', a group of aristocratic and financial elites commission a German engineer to build a line of spaceships that will allow them to escape Earth on the eve of the impending global socialist revolution, wait it out on UsefulNotes/{{Venus}} (the novel was written before the scientists discovered just what kind of hellhole Venus actually was) until their loyal troops subdued the uprising, then return to claim their rightful place. Unfortunately for them, only one ship is actually built and takes off in time to outrun the revolution, and a socialist mole among the servants they brought along (because, of course, they wouldn't wash their own dishes) makes sure that the "parasites" are left behind on Venus when the ship heads back home upon receiving the news of the revolution's victory.
* ''Literature/TheSecretRunnersOfNewYork'' features a contagion that kills 99.5% of humanity. The narrator's parents and most of their acquaintances pay $17 million apiece to ride things out in an island refuge. When the narrator travels into the future and journeys to the island, she discovers that it was attacked by angry lower-class survivors who killed or chased away all the elites.
* ''Sold -- For a Spaceship'' by Philip High is set in the aftermath of a global ecological catastrophe. A ruling elite who escaped into space attempt to return to Earth, but find that they are unable to survive, whereas those left behind have adapted.
* ''Literature/TheLockedTomb: Literature/NonaTheNinth'': Ten thousand years ago, the Earth was on the cusp of climate apocalypse, and the man later known as John Gaius was the lead scientist on cryostasis technology that would allow the entire human population to evacuate to a habitable exoplanet aboard a fleet of generation ships. Until, that is, the world's trillionaires pulled strings to get the project shut down, and its resources diverted to fund their own, private evacuation effort, and leave the rest of humanity to die. The callousness of it all, along with the flagrant lies and corruption required to keep the trillionaires' project going and convince the population that everyone would still be saved, is ''the'' reason for the Emperor's 10,000-year-long vendetta [[SinsOfTheFather against their descendants]].
* ''LightNovel/HeavyObject'': In Volume 18, it's revealed that the elites in charge of various off-world colonization programs determined they wouldn't succeed for a number of reasons. Instead they redirected the resources into constructing self-sustaining bunker cities where they could ride out the apocalypse in comfort. They even funded the creation of a spaceborne Object specifically because its destruction would result in a cataclysmic impact wiping out the surface. Frolaytia ends up killing everyone in one of the cities on discovering the plan.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/The100'': The Mountain Men survivor group are descended from the American president and his cabinet, who fled there when [[AIIsACrapshoot a rogue AI -- one that they weren't responsible for creating -- set off the world's weapons]] and are an antagonistic faction as a whole (albeit with many sympathetic members).
* A major plot point in ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryApocalypse''. When it came to the nuclear war that would kill all but a tiny majority of the world's population, the extremely wealthy had rented out rooms for themselves in fallout shelters. [[PreppyName Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt]]'s entire family had one (but her parents and brother weren't able to get to the flight in time), as did Creator/OprahWinfrey {{expy}} Diana and her son. Coco also insists on her hairdresser and her personal assistant, Mallory (who are not elite) coming along because she is [[UpperClassTwit so sheltered]] that she can't do anything without them. However, zigzagged in that Coco, Mallory, and Diana are actually all witches, and their survival was to ensure they could find the Antichrist Michael Langdon and reverse time to stop him, so they weren't ''really'' jumping ship but were actually just trying to avert the crisis. However, Coco and Mallory weren't aware of this due to identity spells put on them.
* Subverted in ''Series/TheArk2023''. With Earth falling apart, those launched into space appear to quite sensibly be people with the skills necessary to survive on a new world, though one could argue Cat is an edge case, being more of a celebrity influencer than an actual therapist. [[spoiler: Played straight with William Trust (founder of the ark program) and his wife, who hid themselves on ''Ark 1'' in stasis despite the public front that they stayed behind so that Trust could perfect FTL for the later arks.]]
* ''Series/BlakesSeven''. In [[Recap/BlakesSevenS4E8Games "Games"]], the Terran Federation has abandoned a colony after the planetary resources have all been mined, evacuating the essential personnel but leaving everyone else to die of starvation (though an industrial accident kills them off instead).
* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': Briefly PlayedForLaughs when one episode mentions that both the VictimOfTheWeek (a lottery winner) and [[UnclePennybags Castle]] have bought land on the moon, largely for the novelty. It never comes up again due to not being the kind of show where there ''is'' some society-destroying disaster.
--> '''Castle:''' You know what, laugh it up. When the earth is a desiccated husk, you will be begging to come live with me in the Nectaris Basin.
* ''Series/{{Defiance}}'': In the backstory, the residents of the Votanis System discovered that a stellar collision would destroy their homeworlds in 500 years and used those 500 years to prepare for a massive HomeworldEvacuation, which still wasn't enough to save everyone. The selection process varied between the seven species, but some of this was in play. The Indogenes stoically sent their best and brightest scientists while leaving behind the less intelligent, while the Castithans played this trope completely straight, with almost all of their refugees being the people with status and/or money.
** Datak Tarr is a lower-caste Castithan who won a ticket gambling and is a crime boss on Earth.
* ''Series/DoctorWho''. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E3Orphan55 "Orphan 55"]], we're told this happens a lot in humanity's history. Once a planet has been devastated by war or ecological destruction, those who can afford it leave and abandon those who can't to die on what's then called an orphan planet. What really shocks the Doctor and her companions [[spoiler:is that Orphan 55 isn't just another alien planet that now looks like a BBCQuarry, but EarthAllAlong.]]
* In the ''{{Series/Elementary}}'' episode "Ready Or Not", Sherlock and Joan investigate the death of a doomsday prepper and discover a luxury bunker, prepared to receive the rich who have paid to reserve a space there when everything collapses. The bunker is a fake; it's all just a con trick to extract money from wealthy paranoids. Sherlock pours scorn on prepping in general and wealthy preppers in particular.
-->'''Sherlock''': Along with the myriad doomsday scenarios that haunt ordinary preppers - global pandemic, nuclear holocaust, socialist zombies coming to eat their guns - the wealthy ones also worry that the poor are going to rise up with torches and pitchforks. Which, one could argue, wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
* ''Series/{{Jeremiah}}'': Raven Rock Bunker contains the leaders of the government, who hid there during the plague (caused by their malfunctioning bioweapon) that killed anyone who'd reached puberty and want to re-establish domain over what's left.
* ''Series/Kingdom2019'': In literal terms, they invert this trope by ''getting on a ship'' to escape the zombie hordes. Of course, one elderly noble [[TooDumbToLive smuggles her zombified son's body on board]], and everyone on the ship gets a KarmicDeath.
* In the ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' episode [[Recap/LeverageS02E05TheThreeDaysOfTheHunterJob "The Three Days Of The Hunter Job"]] this trope is invoked as part of a con job in order to discredit sleazy reporter Monica Hunter. The Crew tricks Hunter into believing that the world's water supply has been poisoned and that this trope is in play as the political elite of America are planning to ride it out in bunkers with self-sustaining water supplies. [[DirtyCoward One scene has Hunter trying to get in on it]] by telling a military official who she thinks is in on the scheme that a public figure like her could help comfort the people if they let her inside the (nonexistent) bunkers.
* ''Series/Loki2021'': In the episode "Lamentis", Loki and Sylvie end up on the titular planet, which is about to be [[ColonyDrop destroyed by colliding with its moon]]. Trying to escape, they learn that the world's wealthy are gathering on an [[TheArk ark ship]] to flee to safety offworld, leaving everyone else behind to die; [[EveryoneHasStandards Loki expresses clear disgust at this]]. Unfortunately for the upper-classes, the Ark [[LaserGuidedKarma is destroyed by one of the meteors]].
* Tragically presented in ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' episode "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S7E21TheHumanFactor The Human Factor]]", where the SoleSurvivor of the first-ever colony on Ganymede receives a message from Earth that WorldWarIII broke out, and nukes have wiped out a lot of the planet (including the survivor's family). A shuttle carrying the President and other officials is heading for Ganymede and will arrive in a few months. In despair, the survivor re-rigs the place to explode before they arrive.
* Just like in the movie, ''Series/{{Snowpiercer}}'' depicts the rich of the world buying their way onto the titular [[TheArk ark train]] in order to survive the artificially-induced new Ice Age. They live in comfort, while the poorer passengers who managed to earn tickets do all the menial labor, and the poor who ''didn't'' get tickets but managed to break onto the train as it departed are kept locked up in the tail cabins like cattle. The fourth episode also mentions that most of the super-rich who didn't get on the train chose to retreat to bunkers or try to upload their consciousness into computers.
* Attempted in the TV-movie ''Film/{{Threads}}''. Sheffield town council evacuate themselves to a fully-stocked bunker as soon as the alarm goes off (although the fact that they don't bring their families and try to coordinate with the outside indicates it is a genuine attempt at continuity of government). This in fact just shows how completely unprepared they are, because while they mostly survive the initial blast, they are trapped in a shelter with limited food and water, all their orders are useless, and they're eventually found dead a few weeks later anyway.
* Done again in ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "Quarantine", a man named Matthew Forman [[HumanPopsicle cryogenically frozen]] during the early 21st Century due to a terminal illness is revived 300 years later by PerfectPacifistPeople with PsychicPowers living in an {{Arcadia}} based on an agrarian lifestyle supplemented by OrganicTechnology. They need his help, supposedly to reactivate orbital particle beam cannons from his time to deflect an incoming asteroid. Questioning their motives, he discovers that they are an AfterTheEnd society, a mere 200,000 people descended from survivors of WorldWarIII. The "asteroid" is actually a U.S. spacecraft loaded with elite politicians and military personnel that fled Earth just as the war began in a bid to survive by using a relativistic orbit that would take advantage of TimeDilation to return them to Earth and take over once the aftereffects of the war had passed. [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans Turns out the future people want Matt to destroy the spacecraft so human warfare will not return to Earth.]]
* ''Series/TheWalkingDead2010'': When a horde of [[ItCanThink variant]] walkers manage to get over the Commonwealth's walls, [[BigBad Governor Milton]] retreats to the gated community inhabited by herself and her elite allies, ordering the Commonwealth army to abandon the rest of the city and solely defend that area. In fact, she orders that the horde be redirected ''towards'' the poorer districts, and also that anyone trying to take refuge inside the gates be shot on sight. [[spoiler: This eventually causes [[HeelFaceTurn her soldiers to turn on her in favor of Mercer's mutiny and arrest her]], before working with Mercer and the Coalition to abandon the gated community, lure the horde in, and then blow it all up.]]
* ''Series/TheWestWing'': Referenced in an early episode where Josh (the deputy Chief of Staff to the President) is told that he's on the list of people to be evacuated to a bunker in the event of nuclear war and agonizes over how people like his secretary and officemates wouldn't be evacuated with him and the other top cabinet members, causing him to say that if there ever is a catastrophe he doesn't want to be included in the evacuation plan.
* ''Series/ZNation'': The beginning of Season 4 features a CrapsaccharineWorld called ZONA that the richest people in the world fled to during the ZombieApocalypse. They are willing to sacrifice everyone else left in the world to preserve their own survival and prosperity.

[[folder:Podcasts]]
* It's a running gag in ''Podcast/WelcomeToNightVale'' that the City Council hits the bricks as soon as serious trouble starts, generally going on an extremely coincidental vacation. This is despite the City Council being initially composed of a multi-body EldritchAbomination that probably has a better chance of survival than any of the city's human inhabitants.
* In ''Podcast/ItCouldHappenHere'', it's mentioned in the episode "The American Refugee Crisis" that rich people would be the first to escape the Second American Civil War and the one that would have the least problems with it, being able to buy visas to still-stable European nations.

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* Used in the swan song of the ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'' metaplot, ''Faction War''. The module's events would be expected to heavily involve the faction leaders and established characters, all of whom have a stake in the fight and should be actively intriguing, fighting, and betraying. Since that would be complicated to write (and to run), the named characters not immediately relevant to the story "go to ground" and can't be contacted.
* Features in the backstory of ''TabletopGame/ChangelingTheDreaming'', as centuries ago the ruling class of Sidhe fled the human world for Arcadia, leaving the other fae to fend for themselves, and only returned recently.

[[folder:Theatre]]
* In Act 2 of ''Theatre/IntoTheWoods'', after the giantess has set upon their castle, the royal family, along with Cinderella's stepfamily, flees the kingdom instead of staying to fight. The finale hints that [[LaserGuidedKarma their fate was, well, not pretty.]]
-->'''Stepmother:''' When going to hide, know how to get there.
-->'''Cinderella's Father:''' And how to get back.
-->'''Florinda & Lucinda:''' And eat first.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* In ''VideoGame/Hitman2'', the Ark Society is a group of elites preparing to jump ship. They gather money, resources, technology, cultural artifacts, etc. to survive a societal/environmental collapse they believe is going to happen. Their plans range from simple bunkers and strongholds to colonies on Titan, and even [[BrainUploading living in a simulation]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'':
** The wealthy American elites hid themselves in bunkers known as Vaults on the onset of the global nuclear war. Ironically, many of those elites were used along with other citizens for Darwinist social experiments by Vault-Tec (and indirectly, the [[GovernmentConspiracy Enclave]]) without them even knowing. Meanwhile, the Enclave spent the apocalypse hiding in a shelter converted from an old oil rig and were promptly blown up by the protagonist of the second game when they tried to 'retake' America.
** As he learnt about an imminent global nuclear war, Mr. House of ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' turned himself into a cyborg, ensured no nukes would fall on Las Vegas, and then hid himself in a bunker, ready to come back after the cataclysm.
** ''VideoGame/Fallout4'':
*** The Commonwealth Institute of Technology (branded as just The Institute) just turned their campus' basement into a customized Vault and scienced the hell out of all their problems. Unfortunately, centuries of turning away the 'mentally inferior' left them unable to handle long-term problems with anything but 'release the science experiments', and were eventually bombed for their arrogance and/or forced under new management.
*** [[CorruptCorporateExecutive John-Caleb Bradberton]] used his wealth to buy immortality, and his corporate office was certified against nuclear Armageddon. Unfortunately, it meant turning him into a severed head on a closed-circuit computer, and he spent 210 years stuck staring at a wall. Then he's either given a mercy kill or forced into a permanent relationship with his craziest fangirl ever.
* In ''VideoGame/SystemShock'', when [[AIIsACrapshoot SHODAN]] began turning the members of Citadel Station into cyborgs and mutants, a bunch of executives fled into one of its artificial garden groves, and had another employee jettison it into space. Unfortunately for the executives, SHODAN had disabled the grove's life support systems by then.
* In ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'', the surviving [[AbsoluteXenophobe Founders]] pulled this trope in one of the {{Alternate Universe}}s that Booker and Elizabeth travel to. In that universe, the Vox Populi revolutionaries succeed in overthrowing the rule of the white racist elite Founders who run Columbia. The Founder elites who don't end up killed and scalped are shown fleeing Columbia in airships and leaving everyone else in Columbia to their fate.
* Discussed by radio host "[[ConspiracyTheorist Maximum Mike]]" on one of his radio segments in ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077''. In his segment, he relates a story about an associate of his who was busted for insurance fraud, after he removed all the valuable equipment from his failing restaurant before setting it alight, which [[SpottingTheThread clued in the police]] that the fire was intentionally set. He then compares this to the [[MegaCorp Mega-Corps]] hoarding the planet's valuable works of art and history on a lunar repository, and asks his listeners to consider the possibility that the world's elite may be be aware of a ''reason'' why they'd need to get all the valuables off the planet, and muses that the next rocket taking off from the spaceport towards the moon...might be the last one.
* ''VideoGame/{{Deponia}}'' is set on the remains of a planet where all the wealthy have moved to the space station Elysium. The remaining planet is a literal dump, like a scrap heap. Naturally, a main goal of the protagonist is getting aboard and enjoying the sweet life. Turns out that they want to blow up the planet and use it as a boost to get moving into space. But only because they are certain that nobody is still living on the planet. Them making doubly sure is what kickstarts the plot.
* In ''VideoGame/DontEscape: 4 Days to Survive'', the protagonists find out most of the elite and wealthy fled to a base on the moon after it was accidentally cracked in half during a mining operation, which in turn utterly screwed with Earth's gravity and turned it into a wasteland. Once there, they went into machines to transfer their minds into the bodies of another universe where the operation never happened. The goal is to ultimately survive the dangers of the hostile environment through the days, get to the last unused rocket ship and get there before the remains of the moon eventually collide with the planet on the final day.]
* PlayedForLaughs in In ''VideoGame/ZombiesRun'', when [[https://zrtranscripts.tumblr.com/post/149135929571/season-3-mission-53-there-is-power-in-a-union Season 3 Mission 53]] introduces the Henley Compound and explains its history.
-->'''Sam Yao''' Judging by the Rofflenet rage when people found out about the Henley Compound, they are pretty damned sure. One of the few Comansys scientists not still with them, an expert in the micro-power systems used by most of the company's technology, living a life of luxury in a high-security super-rich survival colony on the banks of the Thames. The Rofflenet folks hit the roof!
* In ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'', all of Dubai's upper class fled the city before the sandstorm hit, leaving behind the large population of migrant workers to fend for themselves.
* [[AristocratsAreEvil Governor Vandis]] pulls this trope in ''VideoGame/DawnOfWarII''. He ruled as Governor of the Hive World and sub-sector capital, Meridian, and served as the primary obstacle to the Blood Ravens for gaining access to Angel's Forge. After initially brushing off a possible Tyranid invasion, he decided to flee the sub-sector once it becomes apparent that the Tyranids are there in force and leaves his planet and the whole sector to die.
* In ''VideoGame/TheOuterWorlds'', the Board's "plan" to deal with the current crisis of dwindling food supplies and the colonies' wearing out (both of which are largely due to the Board's own incompetence) is to kill or cryogenically freeze most of the lower class citizens and let the wealthy elites survive on the remaining resources.
* ''VideoGame/UruAgesBeyondMyst'': Kadish, one of the most influential citizens of D'ni, fled the underground city when a plague began wiping out its residents, holing up in a vault in one of his luxurious, privately-owned Ages. You can find his skeleton inside the vault, surrounded by the riches that'd done jack squat to save him.
* Toward the conclusion of ''VideoGame/Halo2'', there’s a civil war going on in the Covenant holy city of High Charity between the Brutes and the Elites (the species, not the kind the trope title is referring to), the Master Chief has launched a one-Spartan assault, and a Flood-infested ship has crash-landed in the center of the city. Where are the Covenant High Prophets during this time? The end cutscene of Chief’s penultimate mission shows the High Prophets and their Brute honor guard boarding ships on their way out of the city. Somewhat subverted in that the Flood attacks before they could board, resulting in the Prophet of Mercy’s death.
* This is the plan of Shido in ''VideoGame/Persona5''. Despite publicly talking about wanting to lead Japan into a new age of prosperity as its new Prime Minister, his actual views, as reflected in his Palace, is of the Diet Building as a huge luxury cruise ship where he and his sycophants live in splendor while the rest of the country drowns.
* Done by many of the world's elites in ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'' who built themselves sanctuaries either underground or in orbit where they could live out the rest of their lives safe from the Faro Plague.
** ''VideoGame/HorizonForbiddenWest'' the sequel [[ExaggeratedTrope Exaggerated]] this trope[[spoiler: With the trillionaires that make up [[Characters/HorizonZeroDawnFarZenith Far Zenith]] having fled the solar system to make their own SocietyOfImmortals.]]
* After the [[OmnicidalManiac Reapers]] finally invade in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', you hear people discussing "Sanctuary", a secret location intended to stay off the radar of the Reapers, which -- naturally enough -- costs a lot to get into. A wealthy industrialist, Rupe Elkoss, can be heard remarking that it's likely just prefab shelters and nutrient paste. The truth is way, way worse than even he imagines.
* In ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'', the resident ConspiracyTheorist radio host Lazarus keeps warning his listeners that the {{Mega Corp}}s' massive build-up in low-Earth orbit in recent years is a sign of the financial elites preparing their move to outer space, as the Earth becomes less and less hospitable to human life -- and, of course, the common people are not invited for the ride.
* In ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClank2002'' those who can afford it evacuate a planet under attack by the Blarg, while those who can't have to wait for Captain Qwark (or an actual hero) to stop the invasion, as related by the Plumber when he's selling Ratchet and Clank an infobot for enough bolts to buy a ticket out.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''WebVideo/SomeMoreNews'' devoted part of an episode to [[DiscussedTrope discussing this trope]] and some hypothetical scenarios in the context of the 2020 Coronavirus outbreak.
* ''{{WebAnimation/RWBY}}'': This is the catalyst for the climax of Volume 7. General Ironwood, overtaken by paranoia due to [[SpannerInTheWorks Cinder]] taunting him and the threat of [[BigBad Salem]] soon arriving at the [[FloatingContinent Floating City]] of Atlas, decides to abandon the remaining unevacuated people of Mantle to raise Atlas up higher (out of Salem's range). [[KnightTemplar He immediately proves willing to get rid of anyone who opposes this decision]]. As Team RWBY refuses to abandon Mantle, he orders [[JustFollowingOrders the Ace-Ops]] to arrest them, [[DividedWeFall puts out warrants for them and their friends]], and [[KickTheMoralityPet tries to execute Oscar for trying to talk him down]]. Add on Cinder delaying Winter's task to become the Winter Maiden long enough for Penny Polendina to take the power instead, and Ironwood is left unable to complete his plans. As the new Maiden is more sympathetic to the protagonists and Mantle, she defects, leaving Ironwood without the means to raise Atlas. RWBY's resistance incapacitates four of his Ace-Ops, while the fifth and leader of their group ends up killed thanks to the conflict allowing [[PracticallyJoker Tyrian]] to escape. And with his forces exhausted from the evacuation that ''had'' been completed before it was abruptly stopped, Ironwood's army is crippled ''just'' as Salem arrives at Atlas' doorstep. [[AllAccordingToPlan Just as Salem wanted.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Presented in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "The Deep South" where it's revealed that the city of Atlanta, Georgia became an island and eventually sank from over-development. As the city sank, its "gods of our legends" evacuated, including Ted Turner, Hank Aaron, Jeff Foxworthy, "the guy who invented Coca-Cola" and [[Music/{{Donovan}} "The Magician"]]. [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg Oh, and Jane Fonda was there, too.]] Leaving the rest of the city population to sink and mutate into fish people.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLEGOMovie2TheSecondPart'': President Business leaves to play golf during the alien invasion at the beginning of the film.
* ''WesternAnimation/LoveDeathAndRobots'': In "Three Robots: Exit Strategies", the three droids examine pre-apocalyptic settlements from various social classes. While regular rich people and world leaders resorted to self-sustaining pockets in the ocean and in mountainside bunkers, the 0.01% not only attempted to make a break for Mars but ''torched the masses who tried to come with them''. To rub it in, [[spoiler:''cats'', but not humans, make up the Martian society seen at the end]].
-->"Who were you expecting to see? Elon Musk?"
* Presented for laughs ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' in the third segment of "Treehouse of Horror IX", where the Y2K computer virus bug creates a world apocalypse, and a rocket ship with the most beloved celebrities is launched so they can start a new society on Mars. Homer and Bart sneak onboard another rocket, only to find that it's full of the most ''hated'' celebrities and is being fired into the Sun.
* Played for satire in ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'' episode "The Fried Chicken Flu", when a viral pandemic spreads around the world and (seemingly) causes great sociopolitical chaos. In response, US President UsefulNotes/BarackObama makes an EmergencyPresidentialAddress to calm down the American public, preaching to show compassion and help out their communities, only to reveal that he and his family have gone underground to live in the fully-stocked White House bunker, and have essentially let the rest of America rot.
-->'''President Obama:''' In conclusion, I wanna say that we are all in for some tough times ahead. And when I say ''we'', I mean ''you''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* In 1815, after the French ship ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Meduse_(1810) La Meduse]]'' grounded in the Bank of Arguin, the commanders and officers, who put themselves on the lifeboats, cut the rope that relayed them to the raft where the [=NCOs=], soldiers and sailors were, leaving them to drift at sea until a British ship rescued the considerably small group of survivors.
* This trope is what used to happen during most of the plagues in the Middle Ages (such as TheBlackDeath). The rich fled the cities and towns, escaping to their private residences in the countryside in hope that the fresher air there would protect them (it was widely believed at the time that plagues were caused by "corrupted air"). It did protect them to a degree since contagions spread more slowly in less densely populated regions. This is also the premise of the novel ''Literature/TheDecameron''.
* During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, United Kingdom propaganda promoted the idea of "In It Together", in which groups of people from all walks of life gathered in the London Underground to get through the war (and the German bombing of London) together. This was a reversal from their reaction early in the Blitz, when the Tube was locked up to ''prevent'' people from sheltering there - and to stop them reaching the wealthier areas of London where the rich could take shelter in, for instance, the basement shelters of grand hotels. The Savoy had a shelter it advertised as "The Smartest in London"; some shelters had bars and restaurant service (Hotels were exempted from rationing) and at least one had a gaming room so patrons could gamble while they waited out the bombing. Meanwhile, surface shelters intended to provide some protection for the working classes were so cheaply built that children could push the bricks out of the wall with their hands; they were overcrowded, had no toilet facilities, and became known as [[https://childreninthesecondworldwar.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/the-morrison-sandwich/ "Morrison Sandwiches"]], named after the then Home Secretary, because a nearby bomb hit could blow out the brick walls and drop the solid concrete slab that comprised the ceiling onto those sheltering inside. These blatant injustices were at least somewhat corrected as the Blitz went on - the Sandwiches were mostly pulled down as not fit for purpose, the Tube was no longer locked and had fold-up bunks installed to enable more people to sleep there - but in truth, less than .1% of London's citizens actually gathered in the Underground (7000 out of 8 million residents), and these people were almost entirely poor and working-class. The rich elites, who either owned or could afford to build their own bunkers, were still waiting things out in relative comfort. The Tube was safer than most shelters, but a direct hit above a station could drop chunks of the ceiling onto those sheltering there, and there were a few freakish tragedies where bombs just happened to drop at exactly the right spot and at exactly the right angle to travel down the escalator tunnels, detonating inside the stations and killing hundreds. The Government did issue kits to build your own [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raid_shelter#Anderson_shelter Anderson Shelter]], free to any family earning less than £5 a week; for those earning more, the kits cost £7. Morrison got another type of shelter named for him; the much more effective [[https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30082790 Morrison Table Shelter]], which could serve as a dining table during the day and be quickly converted into a steel-framed bomb shelter during raids, intended for those who had no garden in which to place an Anderson.
%%https://jezebel.com/rich-people-have-always-been-assholes-during-plagues-1842126456
[[/folder]]

** Inverted in the original ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'': As the world suffers from overpopulation and resultant environmental collapse, the elites ''force others to jump ship''. By 0079 (79 years after the foundation of space colonies) anyone born on Earth, regardless of class, are jeered at as "Earth elites" and are the subjects of resentment by the colonists -- occasionally [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized murderously]] [[ColonyDrop so]].

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends:''

* Subverted in ''Series/TheArk2023''. With Earth falling apart, those launched into space appear to quite sensibly be people with the skills necessary to survive on a new world, though one could argue Cat is an edge case, being more of a celebrity influencer than an actual therapist. [[spoiler: Played straight with [[CorruptCorporateExecutive William Trust]], who hid himself on ''Ark I'' in stasis despite the public front that he stayed behind to help with the other arks.]]

** ''VideoGame/Fallout4'':The Commonwealth Institute of Technology (branded as just The Institute) just turned their campus' basement into a customized Vault and scienced the hell out of all their problems. Unfortunately, centuries of turning away the 'mentally inferior' left them unable to handle long-term problems with anything but 'release the science experiments', and were eventually bombed for their arrogance and/or forced under new management.

* A major plot point in ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryApocalypse''. When it came to the nuclear war that would kill all but a tiny majority of the world's population, the extremely wealthy had rented out rooms for themselves in fallout shelters. [[PreppyName Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt]]'s entire family had one (but her parents and brother weren't able to get to the flight in time), as did Creator/OprahWinfrey {{expy}} Diana and her son. Coco also insists on her hairdresser and her personal assistant, Mallory (who are not elite) coming along because she is [[UpperClassTwit so sheltered]] that she can't do anything without them. However, zigzagged in that Coco, Mallory, and Diana are actually all witches, and their survival was to ensure they could find the Antichrist Michael Langdon and reverse time to stop him, so they weren't ''really'' jumping ship but were actually just trying to avert the crisis. However, Coco and Mallory weren't aware of this due to identity spells put on them.
* Attempted in the TV-movie ''Film/{{Threads}}''. Sheffield town council evacuate themselves to a fully-stocked bunker as soon as the alarm goes off (although the fact that they don't bring their families and try to coordinate with the outside indicates it is a genuine attempt at continuity of government). This in fact just shows how completely unprepared they are, because while they mostly survive the initial blast, they are trapped in a shelter with limited food and water, all their orders are useless, and they're eventually found dead a few weeks later anyway.
* Just like in the movie, ''Series/{{Snowpiercer}}'' depicts the rich of the world buying their way onto the titular [[TheArk ark train]] in order to survive the artificially-induced new Ice Age. They live in comfort, while the poorer passengers who managed to earn tickets do all the menial labor, and the poor who ''didn't'' get tickets but managed to break onto the train as it departed are kept locked up in the tail cabins like cattle. The fourth episode also mentions that most of the super-rich who didn't get on the train chose to retreat to bunkers or try to upload their consciousness into computers.
* ''Series/{{Jeremiah}}'': Raven Rock Bunker contains the leaders of the government, who hid there during the plague (caused by their malfunctioning bioweapon) that killed anyone who'd reached puberty and want to re-establish domain over what's left.
* In the ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' episode [[Recap/LeverageS02E05TheThreeDaysOfTheHunterJob "The Three Days Of The Hunter Job"]] this trope is invoked as part of a con job in order to discredit sleazy reporter Monica Hunter. The Crew tricks Hunter into believing that the world's water supply has been poisoned and that this trope is in play as the political elite of America are planning to ride it out in bunkers with self-sustaining water supplies. [[DirtyCoward One scene has Hunter trying to get in on it]] by telling a military official who she thinks is in on the scheme that a public figure like her could help comfort the people if they let her inside the (nonexistent) bunkers.
* In the ''{{Series/Elementary}}'' episode "Ready Or Not", Sherlock and Joan investigate the death of a doomsday prepper and discover a luxury bunker, prepared to receive the rich who have paid to reserve a space there when everything collapses. The bunker is a fake; it's all just a con trick to extract money from wealthy paranoids. Sherlock pours scorn on prepping in general and wealthy preppers in particular: "Along with the myriad doomsday scenarios that haunt ordinary preppers - global pandemic, nuclear holocaust, socialist zombies coming to eat their guns - the wealthy ones also worry that the poor are going to rise up with torches and pitchforks. Which, one could argue, wouldn't be the worst thing in the world."
* ''Series/The100'': The Mountain Men survivor group are descended from the American president and his cabinet, who fled there when [[AIIsACrapshoot a rogue AI -- one that they weren't responsible for creating -- set off the world's weapons]] and are an antagonistic faction as a whole (albeit with many sympathetic members).
* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': Briefly PlayedForLaughs when one episode mentions that both the VictimOfTheWeek (a lottery winner) and [[UnclePennybags Castle]] have bought land on the moon, largely for the novelty. It never comes up again due to not being the kind of show where there ''is'' some society-destroying disaster.
--> '''Castle:''' You know what, laugh it up. When the earth is a desiccated husk, you will be begging to come live with me in the Nectaris Basin.

* ''Series/{{Defiance}}'': In the backstory, the residents of the Votanis System discovered that a stellar collision would destroy their homeworlds in 500 years and used those 500 years to prepare for a massive HomeworldEvacuation, which still wasn't enough to save everyone. The selection process varied between the seven species, but some of this was in play. The Indogenes stoically sent their best and brightest scientists while leaving behind the less intelligent, while the Castithans played this trope completely straight, with almost all of their refugees being the people with status and/or money.
** Datak Tarr is a lower-caste Castithan who won a ticket gambling and is a crime boss on Earth.
* ''Series/Kingdom2019'': In literal terms, they invert this trope by ''getting on a ship'' to escape the zombie hordes. Of course, one elderly noble [[TooDumbToLive smuggles her zombified son's body on board]], and everyone on the ship gets a KarmicDeath.
* ''Series/Loki2021'': In the episode "Lamentis", Loki and Sylvie end up on the titular planet, which is about to be [[ColonyDrop destroyed by colliding with its moon]]. Trying to escape, they learn that the world's wealthy are gathering on an [[TheArk ark ship]] to flee to safety offworld, leaving everyone else behind to die; [[EveryoneHasStandards Loki expresses clear disgust at this]]. Unfortunately for the upper-classes, the Ark [[LaserGuidedKarma is destroyed by one of the meteors]].

* ''Series/TheWalkingDead2010'': When a horde of [[ItCanThink variant]] walkers manage to get over the Commonwealth's walls, [[BigBad Governor Milton]] retreats to the gated community inhabited by herself and her elite allies, ordering the Commonwealth army to abandon the rest of the city and solely defend that area. In fact, she orders that the horde be redirected ''towards'' the poorer districts, and also that anyone trying to take refuge inside the gates be shot on sight. [[spoiler: This eventually causes [[HeelFaceTurn her soldiers to turn on her in favor of Mercer's mutiny and arrest her]], before working with Mercer and the Coalition to abandon the gated community, lure the horde in, and then blow it all up.]]

* ''The Secret Runners of New York'' by Creator/MatthewReilly features a contagion that kills 99.5% of humanity. The narrator's parents and most of their acquaintances pay $17 million apiece to ride things out in an island refuge. When the narrator travels into the future and journeys to the island, she discovers that it was attacked by angry lower-class survivors who killed or chased away all the elites.

--->'''Chief Guard:''' What do you think you're going to do, Jedi? Cut right through the walls with your lightsaber? Fight off every one of us?
--> '''Loden:''' [[BadassBoast Sure. Why not?]]