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Playing With / Living Battery

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Basic Trope: A living entity is used as a power source.

  • Straight: Alice is plugged into a machine to serve as its power source.
  • Exaggerated: All humans are used as batteries for a world-spanning machine.
  • Downplayed: Wearable devices powered by body heat, body electricity or just plain movement exist in the real world.
  • Justified:
    • Alice volunteered to do it, possibly out of a need to atone for past misdeeds, or because she's the only one who can.
    • The machine turns AB blood into energy, and she's the only member of the team with AB.
  • Inverted:
    • Alice uses batteries to keep her body alive.
    • Energy Absorption: Alice drains electricity out of the area, and uses it to power herself.
  • Subverted: It looks like Alice is a battery, but she's really there to control the system.
  • Double Subverted: But it turns out that without her, the machine can't access its real power source.
  • Parodied: Alice has to be inserted the right way round, or the current won't flow.
  • Zig Zagged: The machine in question is a giant capacitor, and while it powers the base it can also be used to re-energize Alice with all the stored energy she generated. Sometimes Alice powers the machine, and sometimes it powers her.
  • Averted: No living thing is used to power anything.
  • Enforced: ???
  • Lampshaded: "What, do I have to go out and push?"
  • Invoked: ???
  • Exploited: Evulz knows Alice is being used to power the base, and spends the time to talk her down and bring her to his side.
  • Defied: "Living power-soruces are too erratic and clever to maintain. We'll stick with fission, thanks."
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???
  • Played For Drama:
    • Alice is used for the purpose as a punishment. Her energy's continually siphoned to undo the damage's she caused.
    • The subtrope Powered by a Forsaken Child is generally played for power.

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