History Main / DeadMansSwitch

* In ''VideoGame/SyphonFilter 2'', Morgan has a Dead Man Switch that will blow up the expo center if you shoot him before the bombs are defused. In the first game, killing Girdeux with explosives will set off the virus bomb.
* ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'': After Keeper disobeys the Dark Council one too many times, they threaten him with execution. Keeper, who has been apart of Imperial Intelligence for many years and is privy to most, ''if not all'', of the Empire's dirty little secrets, implied that certain documents would be released in the event of his death. The Dark Council was forced to grant Keeper early retirement.

* In the ''Star Quest'' novel ''Roboworld'' by Creator/TerranceDicks, MadScientist Faber finds that his android Ultimo is helping the heroes escape. To force him to comply, Faber pulls a lever that when released will detonate the anti-matter powering his asteroid base, and orders his android to kill the humans. Ultimo refuses, but can't stop his creator because he's not close enough to grab the lever himself. Fortunately, Faber decides [[ItAmusedMe it will be amusing]] to [[BondVillainStupidity wait till just before the spaceship is about to launch]]. However, the heroes blast their spaceship [[ThereWasADoor straight through the hanger doors]] without waiting for them to open, so the [[CollapsingLair asteroid blows up]] too late.

* The ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing'' sequel novel ''Frozen Teardrop'' has a particularly extreme version of this: the Perfect Peace Plan, in Relena Peacecraft's death would cause the {{Nanomachines}} secretly administered to Martian colonists to form blood clots and kill an estimated '''three billion people'''. Relena had to be [[HumanPopsicle put in cryogenic stasis]] until such a time as a solution could be devised.

[[folder:Board Games]]
* In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', several cards give benefits to you or harm other players upon their removal from play. The most successful of these is [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=29936 Standstill,]] a card whose switch is a spell being cast. An entire deck archetype was built around it.
[[/folder]]

* ''[[ComicBook/TheDeathOfClarkKent The Conduit Saga]]'': After Kenny Braverman dies, a mechanism is set off that tries to kill Jimmy Olsen, and if possible, Comicbook/{{Superman}} along with him.
* One story in the ''Endless Nights'' book, part of Neil Gaiman's ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'' series, has a version of this combined with HeKnowsTooMuch. An archaeologist called out on a seemingly ordinary dig discovers it's not so ordinary. When TheMenInBlack finally come in and try to close down the site, the archaeologist reveals that a bot will email a detailed account of the dig to multiple online news sources unless she checks it every 24 hours. They let her go.
* In ''{{ComicBook/Fables}},'' a plucky reporter investigating Fabletown (actually, he's under the impression they're vampires) has a system set up that if he's killed, all the information he's gathered about Fabletown will be released to the press. The Fables have to arrange an elaborate blackmail/con to convince him to defuse the threat. And then Bluebeard kills him anyway.

* The first issue of ''[[ComicBook/GIJoeARealAmericanHeroMarvel G.I. Joe Special Missions]]'' features a terrorist group who've hijacked an airplane; one terrorist wears an explosive vest with a dead man switch set to go off if he releases the trigger. He gets zapped with a taser, causing all of his muscles to contract while incapacitating him.

* ''Comicbook/TheIncredibleHulk'': When Bruce Banner starts working for Comicbook/{{SHIELD}}, he first sets up one of these in case they decide to just kill him to neutralize the threat presented by the Hulk. Prior to his initial meeting with Maria Hill, he steals ''highly'' classified information -- implied to be damning enough to bring down the whole organization if released -- and gives it to a contact (who turns out to be Daredevil) along with instructions to release it if Banner doesn't check in with him on a regular basis.

* In one VillainTeamUp between ComicBook/LexLuthor and ComicBook/{{Brainiac}} to take on Franchise/{{Superman}}, Lex gave Brainiac an upgrade, but arranged it so Brainiac will automatically shut down every few hours unless Lex is around to turn him back on. Lex explains this is to ensure Brainiac doesn't betray or abandon him. Eventually, Brainiac hypnotizes Lex into removing that feature.

* ''Star Wars: ComicBook/DarkTimes'': When Jedi Master Kai Hudorra tries to bluff Darth Vader with a thermal detonator set as one of these, Vader [[NoNonsenseNemesis simply keeps it pressed with The Force, 'sabers the guy up, and then blows the place anyway just for the heck of it]].
* ''[[ComicBook/TheTransformersMegaseries Transformers Spotlight: Shockwave]]'' has Grimlock set one up before the Dynobots go to fight Shockwave. Once they all get put into stasis lock, the ship fires on a nearby volcano, burying all six combatants.

** In the short story "The Warrior," the villain holds one of Michael Carpenter's daughters hostage with detcord (i.e., explosive dynamite-like cord) wrapped around her, with his hand on a dead-man's switch. If the villain dies OR Harry gets too close or uses too much magic (he is a WalkingTechbane), it detonates.

* ''Literature/TheExpanse'': In ''Leviathan Wakes'', Naomi remotely programs the bomb Miller was carrying into the heart of [[MeatMoss Eros Station]] to blow up if its trigger was released for more than 5 seconds, ensuring it would still go off in case Miller was incapacitated.

* In Creator/DeanKoontz's ''[[Literature/DeanKoontzsFrankenstein Frankenstein]]'', [[MadScientist Helios]] used several methods to ensure that his creations couldn't turn on him. One of these was a signal that would be sent out on his death, killing every one of his creations.

* In John Grisham's ''The Partner'', the eponymous character had stolen millions of dollars from his law firm and fled the country. When mercenaries track him down and abduct him, his failure to call in to his co-conspirator puts into action an elaborate plan to locate and free him.

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends:''

** In ''Literature/HandOfThrawn'', it's established that Thrawn had a clone in his secret base who would be released a period of time without Thrawn's intervention. Although, given the period of time that passes... he obviously didn't put a great deal of thought into the delay.

* In the Creator/TerranceDicks ''Star Quest'' novel "Roboworld", MadScientist Faber finds that his android Ultimo is helping the heroes escape. To force him to comply, Faber pulls a lever that when released will detonate the anti-matter powering his asteroid base, and orders his android to kill the humans. Ultimo refuses, but can't stop his creator because he's not close enough to grab the lever himself. Fortunately Faber decides [[ItAmusedMe it will be amusing]] to [[BondVillainStupidity wait till just before the spaceship is about to launch]]. However the heroes blast their spaceship [[ThereWasADoor straight through the hanger doors]] without waiting for them to open, so the [[CollapsingLair asteroid blows up]] too late.
* In ''Strega'', the police corner Literature/{{Burke}} and his outlaw friends in a subway tunnel. To give them time to escape, he throws a spare grenade pin in the direction of the police and claims to be holding the safety lever down, while sitting on an entire crate of grenades. After enough time has passed, he allows himself to be 'persuaded' to put the pin back in and drink the (drugged) coffee they're offering him.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' has the OptionalBoss at the top of the Fanatic's Tower. If you manage to survive the incredibly lengthy staircase gauntlet (with no save points), and beat the boss, he'll cast Ultima before dying, killing the party. Fortunately, it was the game that introduced the Auto-Life spell to the series, which is the only way to win without excessive grinding or taking forever to drain the boss's MP to zero.
*** And he's far from the only one; this game has many bosses and EliteMooks that have some kind of desperation attack they'll perform right before they die, in an attempt to [[TakingYouWithMe take someone with him]].

** In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'', the Patriots are holding Olga's child hostage, and if Raiden ends up dying before completing the mission, they'll kill her too. They claim that Rose is in the same dilemma, but [[GainaxEnding given the circumstances of that ending]], nobody's can really be sure if that's actually the case.

** The eponymous [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker Peace Walker]] is this for the US government; a mobile nuclear launch platform with a top of the line AI capable of launching on its own initiative if the chain of command is out of touch. The main villain, Hot Coldman, takes advantage of this by programming Peace Walker to launch a nuclear attack mere seconds before he dies of his wounds, leaving everyone else unable to stop it in any way other than destroying the mech itself.

* [[PatrollingMook Security guards]] in ''VideoGame/PAYDAY2'' carry pagers that activate when they are killed or taken hostage. Up to four can be answered during a heist - answering a fifth (or failing to answer within the 12-second time limit) will set off the alarm. The guy on the other end will warn you of this once you've answered four pagers, however.
* Pagers return in ''VideoGame/PAYDAY3'', and are a bit more merciful - failing to answer in time will count as two answered pagers, and answering too many will trigger a search under normal circumstances, only raising the alarm if a search is already active.
* The Aftermath ability in ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' (called Detonate in Japan) does damage to the opponent equal to one-quarter its max HP when the Pokémon bearing the ability is knocked out.
** The Destiny Bond attack has a similar effect except that it [[TakingYouWithMe KOs the opponent when the user is defeated]] if they don't switch out.
* In the final mission of ''VideoGame/RainbowSixRogueSpear'', Kutkin radios his {{Mook}}s every 2 minutes. If you kill any of them before taking him down, he will trigger the nuclear meltdown.

* Morgan in ''VideoGame/SyphonFilter2'' has a Dead Man Switch that will blow up the expo center if you shoot him before the bombs are defused. In the first game, killing Girdeux with explosives will set off the virus bomb.

* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', when adventurers kill the corrupted Titan Watcher Loken, he utters in his dying breath, "My death... heralds the end of this world." Loken was tasked by the Pantheon to imprison the Old God Yogg-Saron, and an "Algalon fail-safe" mechanism put in place to trigger if Loken met his demise. Unfortunately, the Titans didn't factor in the possibility of Loken's corruption by the whispers of the Old God that he was imprisoning. Hence, in the Ulduar raid instance, adventurers must "convince" Algalon that all is normal.

* In the first ''VideoGame/{{X|COMUFODefense}}-COM'', soldiers can prime a grenade or a bundle of TNT to explode when they collapse.

[[folder: Visual Novels]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Website/SCPFoundation'', [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-712 SCP-712 "The Impossible Colors."]] The apparatus has a fail secure system installed in it. If the researcher viewing the FictionalColor is incapacitated and releases pressure on a thumb switch their view of the color will be blocked by a light-absorbing panel.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode [[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE24FearOfVictory "Fear of Victory"]], when confronted by Batman in the stadium rafters, Scarecrow holds a vial of potent fear toxin over the side. If Batman attacks in any way, he would drop the vial and drive the entire audience below into a violent, panic-induced frenzy. Robin is able to catch the vial afer Scarecrow drops it.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' episode "The Final Cut," the last surviving member of the Society of Assassins blackmails Batman into protecting him from the villain who has wiped out the rest of the League by hiding a bomb in Gotham City, programmed to go off if he does not enter the proper code every twelve hours. It doesn't do him much good.
* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'': In "Startrain," Max's mom, a train conductor, shows off the actual dead man's switch when the class takes a fieldtrip on her train. She's shown holding it later, even using her nose to check for emails on her smartwatch to avoid releasing it. It becomes the akumatized object when her anxiety over potentially being rejected from the astronaut program gets the better of her.

** In the two-parter "The Crystal Empire," King Sombra's EstablishingCharacterMoment in Celestia's flashback involves a magical equivalent: After she and Luna banished him, his backup curse warped the Crystal Empire through time until his return, thus rendering their victory [[PyrrhicVictory Pyrrhic]] at best.
** The threat in the two-parter "Princess Twilight Sparkle" turns out to be a ''failed'' attempt at this. Back when [[MadGod Discord]] was first defeated by Celestia and Luna, he spread seeds that would grow into vines that would destroy Equestria, just seconds before being turned to stone. However, they didn't do so for another 1,000 years, well after not just his second attempt at conquering the land, but also after his later HeelFaceTurn. Given that he's [[ReformedButNotTamed Discord]], he doesn't explain this until ''after'' the day has been saved.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'': in the Episode "The Hunt for Ziro", Ziro the Hutt reveals he has a holodiary filled with incriminating evidence against the Five Hutt Families, information that will be transmitted to the Republic should he face an untimely end. He later breaks out of jail with help from his ex-girlfriend Sy Snootles to recover the diary and move it to a safer location, [[spoiler:but unfortunately for Ziro Snootles is on Jabba's payroll and [[WomanScorned very pissed off]] that Ziro abandoned her in the past, murdering Ziro and turning the diary over to Jabba once she gets her hands on it]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'', Queen Moon's deal with [[spoiler:[[TheDreaded Queen]] [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Eclipsa]]]] essentially turns [[spoiler:[[FluffyTheTerrible Toffee]]]] into a living Dead Man's Switch. When he dies, she fulfills her side of their MagicallyBindingContract and is freed from her CrystalPrison, and dealing with the fall-out from her release takes up much of the plot of the rest of season 3.
* Brock Samson uses this as a security measure in ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' when he has surgery to remove H.E.L.P.er's head, stuck in his chest like giant annoying shrapnel after the explosive finale of season 3. He nonchalantly pulls the pin on a frag grenade, and sticks it in H.E.L.P.er's mouth. He didn't trust his Argentinian BackAlleyDoctor.

* ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'': The villains have captured several heroes during an attack on Mount Justice, and Blue Beetle is trying to stop them, when Aqualad threatens to detonate a bomb powerful enough to destroy the entire mountain, and says he will disarm it only if Beetle surrenders. Beetle is tough enough to survive it, but stands down to not risk killing the other heroes, much to the protest of his Scarab, who doesn't care about them and is convinced that it's a bluff. The Scarab briefly takes control and attacks Aqualad, causing his finger to come off the switch... and nothing happens, as it really was a bluff.

* UsefulNotes/NorthKorea has a massive number of Cold War era artillery cannons aimed at Seoul in the event a war breaks out or the ruler is killed. The amount of artillery is enough to completely destroy Seoul, the 2nd largest city in the world with a population of 25 million South Koreans. Of course, the South Koreans and their allies could do ''much worse'' to North Korea if it were to attack first, so it goes both ways.

'''''As this is a DeathTrope, all spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware!'''''

* In ''Anime/CodeGeass'', during his final standoff with Suzaku at the end of season one, Lelouch/Zero straps a bomb to himself that he claims will detonate if his heart stops. [[WordOfGod The writers admitted]] that it was added when they realized that otherwise, his opponent would have [[JustShootHim just shot him]]. When the cliffhanger is picked up next season, Suzaku tackles him to the ground and removes the bomb.

* ''Fanfic/TheGreatAceDetective'': [[spoiler:[[BigBad Mael Stronghart]] had a back-up plan in case he was killed by Klint van Zieks. Namely, the autopsy report of Genshin Asogi getting sent to Herlock Sholmes, revealing that Genshin didn't die by the Professor's hound as reported but rather in a duel to the death.]]

* In the first part of the ''Fanfic/StartAgain'' series, ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/12027351/chapters/27225003#workskin The Count of Monte Crisco]]'', [[PeggySue Haru]] blackmails the Black Mask into taking her into the Metaverse and not to kill Wakaba Isshiki or she will tell the public [[spoiler:that he, Goro Akechi, is really Masayosho Shido's bastard son and has been killing on his behalf[[note]]Ironically, Akechi hasn't joined Shido at that point of time, and Haru's action prevented him from joining outright[[/note]]]], and the news will be released if anything happens to her. It works, and Haru permits Makoto to keep the information in case the Black Mask goes after her. [[spoiler:Makoto later uses the information to get Akechi to help save Haru when she gets overwhelmed in Kamoshida's Palace.]]

* Ervil [=LeBaron=], leader of Mormon fundamentalist group Church of the Lamb of God, had rival fundamentalists or dissenters murdered as "blood atonement." Shortly before he died in 1981 while serving a term for murder, he had published and smuggled out of prison a list of aroudg twenty persons he wished to see dead. In 1988, several of those on this list were murdered, simultaneously yet separated by several kilometers, by his disciples acting on his posthumous orders.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchdog_timer Watchdog timers]] are used in embedded systems to reset the processor (or at least raise a non-maskable interrupt) if it gets stuck in a loop and fails to clear the timer before it times out. Many older UsefulNotes/{{Arcade Game}}s implemented watchdog timers by using a simple logic circuit to increment a counter once every frame, with the last counting stage or carry output asserting the master reset signal. The UsefulNotes/NeoGeo MVS included a watchdog timer, but the AES home console did not, and many game cartridges exploited this to distinguish between the two systems during the boot sequence. Watchdog timers have also been integrated into numerous microcontrollers, many of which make the timeout interval programmable and/or require a specific sequence of magic numbers to be written to a certain register within a few machine cycles in order to clear the timer (to make it harder for a malfunctioning piece of code to do this accidentally).

** In the two-parter "The Crystal Empire," King Sombra's EstablishingCharacterMoment in Celestia's flashback involves a magical equivalent: After she and Luna banished him -- his backup curse warped the Crystal Empire through time until his return, thus rendering their victory [[PyrrhicVictory Pyrrhic]] at best.

* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'': in the Episode "The Hunt for Ziro", Ziro the Hutt reveals he has a holodiary filled with incriminating evidence against the Five Hutt Families, information that will be transmitted to the Republic should he face an untimely end. He later breaks out of jail with help from his ex-girlfriend Sy Snootles to recover the diary and move it to a safer location, [[spoiler: but unfortunately for Ziro Snootles is on Jabba's payroll and [[WomanScorned very pissed off]] that Ziro abandoned her in the past, murdering Ziro and turning the diary over to Jabba once she gets her hands on it]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'', Queen Moon's deal with [[spoiler: [[TheDreaded Queen]] [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Eclipsa]]]] essentially turns [[spoiler:[[FluffyTheTerrible Toffee]]]] into a living Dead Man's Switch. When he dies, she fulfills her side of their MagicallyBindingContract and freed from her CrystalPrison, and dealing with the fall-out from her release takes up much of the plot of the rest of season 3.

* ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa'': Junko invokes this to pressure the remaining survivors into succumbing to despair and hide in the school forever.

[[folder: Visual Novels:]]
* ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa'': Junko invokes this to pressure the remaining survivors into succumbing to despair and hide in the school forever.
--> '''Junko:''' Oh, that's right! I almost forgot! The outside world is ''barely'' habitable. What keeps us safe here is tthe air purifier purring away in the physics lab. I'm isometrically linked to it, so if I die, that's all she wrote~!

* ''Radio/{{Earthsearch}}''. Before going into cryonic suspension on ''Challenger'', Grand Emperor Thorden tells the Angel computers running the ship that he's brought his well-armed KillerRobot Fagor on board, and if he suffers a CryonicsFailure it will activate and destroy them. Unfortunately the Angels think he's bluffing, because WhoWouldBeStupidEnough to make a robot that can self-activate its weapon system? Turns out even though the Solaric Empire fought at least three Computer Wars, they've no problem using RobotSoldiers.