Basic Trope: An alert that's used when something bad happens.
- Straight: The Starship Yorktown encounters an enemy ship, and The Captain sounds the "Red Alert" siren and orders his crew to battle stations.
- Exaggerated: An entire fleet of starships go to Red Alert upon sighting an enemy fleet.
- Downplayed: The Yorktown encounters an unidentified ship, and the captain orders "Yellow Alert" until it can be determined if the ship is hostile or not.
- Justified: The sirens and intra-ship announcement are the most efficient means of telling the entire crew that something bad is happening and they need to get to their stations now.
- Inverted:
- Subverted:
- The Yorktown goes to Red Alert upon encountering another ship, but said ship turns out to be non-hostile, and the Red Alert is cancelled.
- While Cadet Bob panics over what might be wrong, his bunkmate merely notes that their clock is an hour behind based on the Monthly Siren Test.
- Double Subverted: The clock is not behind.
- Parodied: The party ship Boogie Wonderland goes to Red Alert — which activates the disco lights and the Earth, Wind & Fire music. Let's groove tonight!
- Zig Zagged:
- Averted:
- Enforced:
- Lampshaded: "The alert sirens just went off? Looks like the battle's about to begin."
- Invoked:
- Exploited:
- Defied:
- Discussed: "You hear this siren? [plays "Red Alert" siren] When you hear this sound, you get straight to your station."
- Conversed: "Just outta curiosity, why is it 'Red Alert'? Why not 'chartreuse'?"
Back to Red Alert
