History Main / InstantMessengerPigeon

* The Demon Kingdom and surrounding lands in ''LightNovel/KyoKaraMaoh'' are caught in MedievalStasis, so naturally when Jozak needs to get a message home he uses these.

*** Google uses sneakernets to transfer data, in come cases into the petabyte (~1,000,000 gigabytes) range, and many military and high-security commercial systems utilize an air-gap (physically disconnected) where updates and data output have to be transferred by physically moving data storage.

** Probably [[JustifiedTrope justified]], as the owls could very easily be [[AWizardDidIt enchanted or supernaturally bred]]. There have also been cases of mail being stolen.

* Literature/DragonridersOfPern has the fire lizards, which are especially useful for this due to the fact that they can teleport.

* The "Dinosaurs A to Z" arc in ''WesternAnimation/DinosaurTrain'' is about Tiny and Buddy trying to gather all the dinosaurs in the titular AlphabetSong. They ask Elliot Enantiornithine and Arlene ''Archaeopteryx'' to spread the word around the Cretaceous and Jurassic, respectively, and they travel faster than the Dinosaur Train even though Arlene isn't very good at flying.

* In ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStoneOcean'', after retrieving Jotaro's stolen Stand disc, Jolyne contacts the Speedwagon Foundation to ask for their assistance in obtaining it from her so they can revive him. To Pucci's surprise, it was actually a pigeon sent to retrieve the disc, not a person. The pigeon was somehow able to fly from the Speedwagon headquarters to Green Dolphin St. Jail in Florida in [[TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot only 20 minutes]], even while going through a rain of poison dart frogs that Weather Report created.

** Previous books, however, have explained that Ankh-Morporkian pigeons ''can'' be trained for two-way traffic. Apparently they're brighter than regular pigeons, although Commander Vimes says there are types of fungus brighter than regular pigeons. The pigeons used by the Watch can ''seek out a specific officer, regardless of where he is''.
** Many of the animals in Ankh-Morpork are a bit brighter than they should be. In the case of the rats, and at least one of the dogs, this is explicitly stated as being because of the magical radiation from Unseen University (the in-series version of nuclear waste).
** Note that some thieves in ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic'' used a "homing rat" to send a message. It's unclear if this is a regular rat trained to track the recipient down by smell, a magic-enhanced rat as per above, or even some fantastical species of rodent, unique to the Disc, that shares pigeons' homing instincts. For the pigeons, however, it's stated that the local gargoyle (who feed almost exclusively on pigeons) population has culled most of the stupid pigeons from the population and the surviving pigeons HadToBeSharp.

* ''LightNovel/AscendanceOfABookworm'': There's a spell called ''ordonnanz'' that changes feystones into magical birds that can record a voice message. The bird is then almost instantly sent to a recepient to whom it repeats the message three times before reverting into a feystone to which the recepient can apply the same spell to give their answer. There has been at least one case on the spell being applied to a paper letter, in which case the bird is pretty much a traveling form for the letter. It seems to be useful when only one of the people involved can use the spell, as a piece of blank paper enchanted to turn into a bird in response to physical indication that the letter is finished can be sent alongside the initial message.

* Webcomic/{{Archipelago}} gives us "poot owls," bird-shaped magical messengers which presumably function much better than an ordinary pigeon but are capable of being intercepted or destroyed by enemy magic, as shown [[http://thesilvertophat.deviantart.com/art/Arch-7-pg-145-196978338 here]].

* As a matter of fact, homing pigeons have been used as early as the days of Cyrus the Great. As Wiki/TheOtherWiki [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeon_post points out]], pigeons were also used by UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar during the Gallic Wars.

[[caption-width-right:350:The prototype of Twitter proved to be quite reliable.]]

* Creator/GeorgeRRMartin's ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' has ravens; though they can only reach established outposts like Riverrun or Castle Black, they're still uncannily quick and unerring about it. Martin has admitted the ravens are a product of RuleOfCool. (RealLife ravens are very smart birds, mind, but pigeons have them beat on directions.) Slightly subverted in that messenger ravens are shot down regularly by everyone, including people who just want to eat them. It's also hinted that the ravens suffer from the same single-destination limitations as real-life messenger pigeons. There are in-universe claims that the modern messenger ravens are the result of the loss of magical knowledge; when the practice started they relayed the messages verbally.[[note]]Real-world ravens -- and based on a few instances, Westerosi ravens as well -- ''can'' mimic human words and sentences, but obviously getting them to say the right thing at the right time in the right place to someone that doesn't know what the raven is meant to say is something else.[[/note]]

* Spoofed in one ''Manga/CrayonShinChan'' strip, which is a WhatIf adventure where Shin Chan and a {{kunoichi}} fights hostile ninjas in medieval Japan. After escaping a deathtrap, the kunoichi blew a whistle, and Shin Chan assumes she's calling her messenger falcon for help. Instead, cue her messenger ''ostrich'' running out from a nearby woods. Still useful as a steed giving them a ride, though.

* Spoofed in one ''Manga/CrayonShinChan'' strip, which is a WhatIf adventure where Shin Chan and a {{kunoichi}} fights hostile ninjas in medieval Japan. After escaping a desthtrap, the kunoichi blew a whistle, and Shin Chan assumes she's calling her messenger falcon for help. Instead, cue her messenger ''ostrich'' running out from a nearby woods. Still useful as a steed giving them a ride, though.

* Creator/GeorgeRRMartin's ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' has ravens; though they can only reach established outposts like Riverrun or Castle Black, they're still uncannily quick and unerring about it. Martin has admitted the ravens are a product of RuleOfCool. (RealLife ravens are very smart birds, mind, but pigeons have them beat on directions.) Slightly subverted in that messenger ravens are shot down regularly by everyone, including people who just want to eat them. It's also hinted that the ravens suffer from the same single-destination limitations as real-life messenger pigeons. There are in-universe claims that the modern messenger ravens are the result of the loss of magical knowledge; when the practice started they relayed the messages verbally[[note]]real-world ravens -- and based on a few instances, Westerosi ravens as well -- ''can'' mimic human words and sentences, but obviously getting them to say the right thing at the right time in the right place to someone that doesn't know what the raven is meant to say is something else.[[/note]].

'''Aang:''' Wow, how does it work‌?\\

-->-- ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', [[http://www.avatarspiritmedia.net/transcripts.php?ep=307 "The Runaway"]]

* In ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'', a traveler pigeon fins Falco in the middle of the Land of the Asura, located across the sea. Somehow.

* The Franchise/{{Tintin}} adventure ''The Blue Lotus'' showed the villain Mitsuhirato receiving and sending messages by homing pigeon.

* Played for laughs in ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}} and the Vikings'', where Justforkix's pet pigeon Shortmessageservix is trained to send messages like a mobile phone. His coos and warbles even sound like touch-tone dialing.

* ''[[WesternAnimation/MaxFleischersGulliversTravels Gulliver's Travels]]'': King Bombo uses a cross-eyed carrier pigeon named Twinkletoes for correspondence with his spies in Lilliput.

* The ''Dinotopia'' miniseries (and the [[Literature/{{Dinotopia}} books]] it was based on) features small dino-parrots which memorize verbal messages to be sent to others on the island. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] as the Messenger Bird in the miniseries are clearly sapient, and the Dimorphodon in the books probably are too.

** ''Many'' of the animals in Ankh-Morpork are a bit brighter than they should be. In the case of the rats, and at least one of the dogs, this is explicitly stated as being because of the magical radiation from Unseen University (the in-series version of nuclear waste).

* Played with in ''Series/{{Blackadder}} Goes Forth''. Blackadder kills a messenger pigeon and eats it to remove any evidence of receiving suicidal orders, in order to have a plausible explanation for not following them. Unfortunately for him, General Melchett is personally familiar with the pigeon, and is able to recognize its remaining feather -- and the message it was carrying was an announcement that shooting messenger pigeons has been made a capital offense due to the number of orders not getting through.

* In the [[VideoGame/StarOcean1 first]] and [[VideoGame/StarOceanTheSecondStory second]] ''VideoGame/StarOcean'' game for the SNES, party members could learn to use messenger pigeons to deliver a shopping list and required money to a store. No matter where the party was, the bird would always return with the requested items, whether the party was in a forest, in a cave, or in another dimension! Foiled if you are missing the appropriate perk/attribute/etc. Have a different character send the bird if this happens. The second game had it as well.

* One caller to [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto Chatterbox]] who is the head of an organization trying to get people to stop using phones, says that the group has had to resort to homing pigeons, who keep disappearing. Later on a redneck calls in saying that pigeons make a good meal, and sometimes they "come with notes attached, just like a fortune cookie with wings."
* Done in ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'' with Hinawa's letter to Flint; the pigeon is even patiently sleeping outside Flint's door when he gets to it. This is probably too brief a moment to be classified definitively as either being played straight or averted; that pigeon doesn't have to fly far, is only seen once, and given the distance takes kind of a while to get there. Another messenger pigeon is seen later in the game, but we never see it reach its destination (and given that the non-plot-critical nature of the message, it doesn't matter tremendously either way.)
* ''[[VideoGame/TheSims My Sims Kingdoms]]'' has a pigeon that works opposite to real life; no matter where in the world you and your friends are, it will find you with messages from the King and then return home.
* ''[[VideoGame/TheSims The Sims Medieval]]'' has a pigeon mailbox that acts pretty much the same as a normal mailbox/telephone in ''VideoGame/TheSims''. For example, if your monarch sends a pigeon-delivered invite to foreign dignitaries, they will be on the castle doorstep within the hour.
* In ''VideoGame/EternalSonata'', Claves sends a dove to Baroque to deliver the message to Prince Crescendo that [[spoiler:Princess Serenade is a Forte spy]]. Not only does the dove make it safely, but it survives the bitter cold to land neatly upon Crescendo's window. The dove passes over Polka and company on its way. Polka remarks that it's strange to see a dove flying over a snowy mountain. {{Lampshad|eHanging}}ing, perhaps?

* Understandable in ''VideoGame/GoldenSun: The Lost Age'', where the pigeon is being sent from the house of Piers's uncle to another character's home in Lemuria; there are so few people around, and Piers, [[spoiler: Lunpa]], and King Hydros all seem to be close enough that it's believable they'd have pigeon contacts for each other. There is no excuse in ''Dark Dawn'' for Isaac to be sending Kraden's own pigeon back to him, after Kraden sent it to Goma Plateau with a message for Isaac, especially since Kraden was traveling at the time. He later sends it to take a message to Piers, even though Piers is also traveling. Lampshaded when Tyrell mentions he wouldn't know where to find Piers.

* Bird Anime/{{Pokemon}} are used for this all over the franchise. This is more justified than some examples because Flying-type Anime/{{Pokemon}} are much tougher than actual pigeons, and are also fully sapient and understand human speech. Subverted in ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver''. A guy near Goldenrod City asks the PlayerCharacter to deliver a message to his friend near Violet City. He loans you a Spearow that [[YouHaveResearchedBreathing doesn't know Fly]], so it apparently can't deliver the message itself.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Thief|2014}}'', Basso uses a messenger pigeon named Jenivere to send messages to Garret's clock tower hideout. Played more realistically in that it's only flying within the confines of a single city.
* In the first ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'' Sylvia has gone into hiding and sends Travis his next contract through "Snail mail", which turns out to be a carrier pigeon flying through his window like a brick while sounding like a jet plane for no reason.

* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': Vaarsuvius develops the spell "Greater Animal Messenger": it sends three messenger birds that can't deviate from the path or be affected by illusions, and would verbally repeat a message once they got within five feet of their target. Vaarsuvius made it clear that the absurd amount of time and lost sleep [[TemptingFate has assured success]]. The birds are, [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife of course]], shot down with arrows and eaten by their intended recipients. Earlier averted when Vaarsuvius's familiar (a raven) is being utilized to transmit information on a bandit camp instantly to Vaarsuvius. Unfortunately, the bandits hit it with a thousand arrows the moment it flies over (to Haley's exasperated cry "Oh come on! Thousands of birds must fly over every day!")

* ''VideoGame/WhiteKnightChronicles'' features an interesting take on the trope. Bigelows, cute, intelligent, owl-like birds, work like homing pigeons to deliver messages over long distances. The trick is that a pair of bigelows (presumably mates) can telepathically transmit messages and images between one another in real time. So while they still need to fly to and from their destinations, the messages they relay literally are instant. The bird's eyes project a grey-scale 3D {{hologram}} complete with sound, in a way that seems [[StarWars suspiciously familiar]].

* The old Sega game ''Warmonger'' had you communicate with your generals by messenger pigeon. It took longer the farther away they were and you could, if bored, watch the bird's flight as it went across country. The birds were pretty reliable although if they flew over an enemy army the soldiers would take potshots at them.

* ''LightNovel/AscendanceOfABookworm'': There's a spell called ''ordonnanz'' that changes feystones into magical birds that can record a voice message. The bird is then almost instantly sent to a recepient to whom it repeats the message three times before reverting into a feystone to which the recepient can apply the same spell to give their answer. There has been at least one case on the spell being applied to a paper letter, in which case the bird is pretty much a traveling form for the letter. It seems to be useful when only one of the people involved can use the spell, as a piece of blank paper enchanted to turn into a bird in response to physical indication that the letter is finshed can ben sent alongside the initial message.

* ''LightNovel/AscendanceOfABookworm'': There's a spell called ''ordonnanz'' that changes feystones into magical birds that can record a voice message. The bird is then almost instantly sent to a recepient to whom it repeats the message three times before reverting into a feystone to which the recepient can apply the same spell to give their answer. There has been at least one case on the spell being applied to a paper letter, in which case the bird is pretty much a traveling form for the letter. It seems to be useful when only one of the people involved can use the spell, as a piece of blank paper enchanted to turn into a bird as soon as the answer in written can ben sent alongside the initial message.

* ''LightNovel/AscendanceOfABookworm'': There's a spell called ''ordonnanz'' that changes feystones into magical birds that can record a voice message. The bird is then almost instantly sent to a recepient to whom the message will be repeated three times before reverting into a feystone to which the recepient can apply the same spell to give their answer. There has been at least one case on the spell being applied to a paper letter, in which the bird is pretty much a traveling form for the letter. It seems to be useful when only one of the people involved can use the spell, as piece of blank paper enchanted to turn into a bird as soon as the answer in written can ben sent alongside the initial message.