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Voice With An Internet Connection
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The Voice With an Internet Connection is the helpful person at the other end of the main character's earpiece. They give the character all sorts of useful advice that is either blisteringly obvious or frustratingly cryptic, presumably sourced from the Internet or some other information compendium.
In some cases, the Voice has an unexplained video and audio feed, and in others, an explained video and audio feed. Rarely, the voice will rely on information from the main character to tell them what is going on. In this last case, there will be a dramatic scene where the screen cuts to black and the Voice screams with concern for the main.
The character varies in personality from grizzled commanding officer to cute young nurse to English scholar, but the two things the Voices have in common are a complete knowledge of whatever the main character happens to be doing and a complete lack of physical presence. Most often, this character is the opposite gender to the character to whom he or she speaks.
The Voice with an Internet Connection serves two purposes. The first is as a way of explaining things about the game world to the player, and the second is to give the character someone to talk to throughout the game, thus developing the character as either a philandering badass or a chick with, quote, 'tude, unquote. The former is for all male characters, and the latter for female characters, unless the main is a Heroic Mime. If the main is the silent type the Voice talks more, sometimes saying what the main normally would.
This character appears far more often in modern day and science fiction than in other genres, and almost never in fantasy, where the Voice's role is generally played by a related character.
The name Voice with an Internet Connection is taken from the fact that these are the archetype's only defining traits, and in many cases, the character's only role.
Related to The Voice and Mr Exposition, the Voice with an Internet Connection is distinguished from both by being a disembodied character who advances the plot as well as a character with a distinct personality, something rare outside of videogames.
Compare Mission Control.
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Examples
Anime & Manga
- A good number of Real Robot anime have characters called operators, who provide the link between the protagonist's Humongous Mecha and HQ; like many Real Robot tropes, this one started with Mobile Suit Gundam.
- Appears in various forms in Serial Experiments Lain, including a talking mouth, Yomoda Chisa, and several others (including Lain).
- The detective L from Death Note starts the series as this, aiding the police task force in their goal to catch the serial killer Kira from the shadows. L eventually reveals his face to a select few of the task force, but to the general public, his only identity is a digitized voice and the letter "L" on a computer screen.
Comics
Films
- In both National Treasure movies, Riley communicates with Ben via earpiece to guide him through whatever government building he's trying to steal something from.
- Tomiko, from the Marine's campaign in Alien Vs. Predator 2.
- The operators in The Matrix.
- In Sneakers, the team use several sources, including the Internet, to guide the point man through their missions. Most notably, Dan Aykroyd gives Robert Redford fairly detailed instructions out of a book on how to defeat a keypad lock (we only see Redford nodding and saying he understands). It turns out to be kicking in the door.
- The Tomb Raider movie adaptations.
- Used by Sedgewick at the end of The Emperor's Club to cheat at a trivia competition (vastly updating the cheat-sheet-in-the-sleeve method he used in the same competition when he was at school).
Literature
- In Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series, Jane, an AI created from an alien-made psychic disturbance on the internet.
- In Artemis Fowl, Foaly.
- In Lisa Mason's The Golden Nineties, the main character is given a voice AI named "muse" which is implanted in her head when she goes back in time, to keep her on her mission. It immediately begins to malfunction due to changes in the past affecting the future.
- In World War Z, a "Skywatcher" helped a downed pilot through her radio to keep on going and reach a pick-up point. Was later revealed it could have been all in her head as said radio was apparently broken.
- In John Sandford's Kidd novels, Bobby Duchamps (a Genius Cripple). The fourth Kidd novel, The Hanged Man's Song, opens with Bobby's murder; until that point, neither the protagonist nor we had ever seen Bobby in person.
- In Otherland, Olga Pirofsky has it while Storming The Castle.
Live Action TV
- Chloe O'Brian in 24.
- Cleopatra 2525 has The Voice. Interesting in that the main characters don't know who she is (though we do get to see her eventually) and finding out her identity is part of the plot.
- Although we get to see her, Theora from Max Headroom, and to a lesser degree, Bryce, both fit this trope.
- In addition to Theora, all other controllers qualify, as this trope is essentially their job description.
- Al from Quantum Leap.
- Chloe Sullivan from Smallville fits this trope in the later seasons, since she can't actually go with Clark into danger, but still wanted to help. She even plays this role with the as-of-yet unnamed Justice League, who refer to her as "Watchtower". (A double Mythology Gag, reflecting both the League's headquarters in the comics and animated series, and Oracle's Clocktower.)
- The Lone Gunmen from The X-Files and then later The Lone Gunmen.
- In one episode of The X-Files, Byers infiltrates a high-stakes poker match with various military executives. Langley feeds him information over an earpiece about various systems from military aircraft. He is eventually found out after one exec mentions a nonexistent production process; Langley finds no information and forces Byers to bluff his way out.
- In the pilot to The Lone Gunmen, Langley infiltrates a stockholder meeting and causes a scene while Frohike steals a computer chip from the back room. The voiceover only comes into play when Frohike tells Langley to cause a distraction to cover their escape.
- The current series of Knight Rider has three of these, and all of them are redundant because KITT has shown he can just do that sort of stuff himself anyway.
- Leverage uses this all the time, usually with Hardison acting as the Voice.
- Knightmare.
- Err, Knight Rider?
- The aptly-named Mister Voice in Go Go Sentai Boukenger.
Radio
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
- Bruce Wayne in Batman Beyond, who basically continued to be Batman into old age vicariously through Terry McGuinness.
- Wade in Kim Possible in the early seasons. However, in later seasons he was shown to be a more active field member.
- Beyond Mission Control, Jérémie of Code Lyoko has this role, especially in Season 4 where the heroes are translated close to some supercomputer in various remote places on Earth. Good thing that Everything Is Online.
Real Life
- This Troper was part of such a voice during an MIT-style puzzle hunt
 . During the final metapuzzle, our team sent a few people with cell phones to do the in-person stuff, and the rest of us stayed behind with a speakerphone, laptops and an internet connection, advising them.
- This Troper once played Voice with an Internet Connection for a friend playing Grand Theft Auto IV. In truth, we were both in the room, but I would refer to the friend as Nishka and would watch the interfaces while he watched the actual screen. Worked surprisingly well as I would inform him about a police unit approaching from behind buildings and he could keep focusing on his straight and not worry about peripherals like the map. Mostly worked for any chase, though I also did this when he needed a way-point.
- Of course, there's also now various GPS units you can use in your car or elsewhere that provide you with directions. Complete with voice.
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