History Main / ExactTimeToFailure

* ''Series/NCISNewOrleans'': In "Broken Hearted", the team has 6 hours to recover a stolen donor heart before it's no longer viable. [[spoiler:RealityEnsues when, despite being found in the nick of time, the heart is in poor enough shape that the patient [[NotQuiteSavedEnough doesn't survive the transplant]].]]

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* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/MonstersVsAliens''. "3... 2... 1... (pause, nothing happens) Maybe my count was wBOOM"

* Many early games, such as ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrothers'', ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'', and ''VideoGame/FinalFight'' have timers on each level. When the timer expires, your character will typically drop dead for no reason. These timers are often there because the games were designed around arcade games, which have timers to keep the quarter-munching at a fast clip.

* Subverted in ''Anime/MaiHime'': the time until Artemis the KillSat is ready to fire is announced, then it gets prepared earlier than expected, catching the protagonists (and the viewers) off guard. It is explained that "just because it's a satellite doesn't mean it moves at a constant rate".

** Used in [[Film/{{Alien}} the first movie]], where a very precise time period is given for both the failure of the cooling system and the (spectacular) explosion of the Nostromo. When Ripley attempts to turn the cooling system back on and literally misses the countdown by seconds, she's unable to do so, likely because Mother (the computer) doesn't like anyone messing with her schedule except for itself. Mother's two 30 second countdowns take 36 and 37 seconds respectively.
** In ''Film/{{Aliens}}'', Ripley searches for Newt inside the colony's atmospheric processing reactor while a computerized voice gives a minute-by-minute countdown as the reactor ticks its way towards becoming a "cloud of vapor the size of Nebraska." Possibly justified in that the reactor's control systems, having real-time information on the temperature, pressure, etc. would be able to predict quite accurately the point at which it would go critical.

* Parodied in ''Film/GalaxyQuest'', which of course was parody of a Star Trek type series, when they think they've stopped the countdown with several seconds to spare but it keeps on going. It finally stops at 1, and they remember that it always stopped at 1 in the actual series.
* ''Film/StarTrekGenerations''
** While the Enterprise-B is inside the energy ribbon, a bridge officer says "45 seconds to structural collapse."
** After the Enterprise-D is damaged by the Klingon attack, Geordie tells the bridge that "We're five minutes from a warp core breach." A few minutes later, Commander Data says that there's one minute to warp core breach.
* Abused in ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises''. [[spoiler: The fusion reactor is converted into a bomb in a matter of minutes, then Bane removes the radioactive core from the reactor itself. Without the containment provided by the reactor, the core is said to be gradually becoming more unstable until it will finally explode. Yet despite this detailed explanation, the core has ''both'' a pretty ring of green lights that gradually turn red ''and'' a digital countdown timer so we can see exactly when the thing will detonate. And it takes ''months'', yet the device can predict down to the second when it gets unstable enough to explode.]]
* Used in ''Film/TheMatrixReloaded''. According to The Keymaker, in order to get access to the door Neo must go through without triggering "the bomb", his support crews must destroy a power plant ''and'' sabotage a backup substation within 314 seconds of each other for no adequately explored reason. [[spoiler:Due to a machine attack, the backup substation crew dies moments before they can sabotage the substation - meaning Trinity must break her promise not to enter the Matrix to sabotage it instead in less than five minutes. Despite having to drive a motorcycle off a roof, fight off a squad of security guards, and go from ground level to the sixty-fifth floor, she completes the task in time.]] During the run, Link calls out "Two minutes left." and "One minute!" within ten seconds of screentime.
-->'''Ghost''': "How long will that take?"
-->'''Keymaker''': "Exactly 314 seconds."
-->'''Soren''': "[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment Just over 5 minutes.]]"
-->'''Keymaker''': "That is the length and breadth of the window. Only The One can open the door, and only during that window can the door be opened."
-->'''Niobe''': "How do you know all this?"
-->'''Keymaker''': "I know because I must know. It's my purpose. It's the reason I'm here. Same reason we're all here."
* Double subverted near the end of ''Film/TheManhattanProject'' - the homemade atomic bomb is accidentally armed and its display is turned on. It starts counting at 999 hours, so at first no one's worried about disarming it in time...until Paul realizes his timing mechanism isn't perfect and will speed up the clock as it goes on. The double subversion comes into play when he and Dr. Mathewson eventually remember that the degradation will result in exponential growth in the timer's speed, so they ''can'' calculate how long it will take the timer to reach zero.
* Justified ''and'' parodied in ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}''. As the timer is for a self-destruct sequence, this trope is basically a given. At one point, however, during the final countdown, the timer skips from 8 to 6, then when the remaining crew point it out, the computer says "just kidding", and returns to 7.

* In the ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' series, there is supposedly a hard two hour time limit on remaining in morph. It's a good thing Ax can keep perfect time in his head because they invariable demorph with seconds to go. Usually with comments about how hard it was to demorph that time or how they almost ran out of time.
** It does vary, since it's occasionally mentioned that the two hours can vary by as much as several minutes (though it coincidentally is never less than 6 seconds from the two hour mark when a morpher's up against the deadline).
** In one book they are able to demorph (with great difficulty) even when they appear to be seven minutes over the time limit. Though Tobias does wonder if the clock was just set to the wrong time.

** Also, Yeerks have to feed on kadrona rays every three days, or they die. It's suggested though, that it might not necessarily be exactly 72 hours, but just somewhere around that time limit. When Jake is infested, and the yeerk in his head is starving, the yeerk becomes delirious for the last few hours of his life, and Jake is along for the ride, so it's hard to judge exactly how much time has passed.
*** It's also possible, when Kandrona starvation is being used as a particularly sadistic method of execution, to ''extend'' the process. Apparently [[BigBad Visser Three]] can make a Kandrona starvation last weeks.

** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''. In "That Which Survives" the Enterprise' engines are sabotaged and the ship accelerates to extremely high speeds. Spock estimates that the engines will overload and detonate in 14.87 minutes, and continues giving a precise countdown as time passes (12 minutes 21 seconds, 10 minutes 19 seconds, and 8 minutes 41 seconds).

** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' played with this when Janeway decided to take a bunch of her worst crewmembers out on a mission to get them to shape up. One of them, a woman who can't do 24th century math to save her life, gets put in charge of the one thing you need math for: calculating time to impact.
---> "Shockwave impact in three, two, one. [pause] More or less."
** Spoofed in an episode where the holographic Doctor is daydreaming that he's the captain of Voyager. The computer voiced by Majel Barret is saying lines like "Warning: Warp core breach a lot sooner than you think" and "Warning: Last chance to be a hero, Doctor. Get going!"

* The ''Animorphs'' example is worse in the [[Series/{{Animorphs}} TV show]]. In the books, morphing is possible but extremely difficult as you near the limit, and there are times when they could've been a few minutes over the oft-repeated two hour mark. In the show, however, there's an instance of Ax (of the perfect timekeeping sense) counting down his morph time limit to the second. He demorphs at the last second as easily as anyone with plenty of time left, with the implication that ''one second later,'' it would have been completely impossible to demorph at all.

** For vehicles which aren't limited by fuel capacity, such as sailboats and nuclear powered ships, the endurance limit is based on the amount of food, water, and other consumables which can be stored on board.

* ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' uses this in both games. In the first, it's "Exact Time to Death by Neurotoxin". ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'' plays with it like you wouldn't believe. The first timer is the same as above. When that fails, it switches to a timer for the reactor meltdown. Then the meltdown timer is blown up, so the facility activates a SelfDestructMechanism to ''[[BetterToDieThanBeKilled remove the uncertainty of not having a timer]]''.

-->'''[[spoiler:Wheatley]]:''' Let me just flag something up: according to the control panel light up there, the entire building is going to self-destruct in about six minutes. I'm pretty sure it's a problem with the light -- I think the light's on the blink, but just in case it isn't, I am actually going to have to kill you, as discussed earlier. So let's call that three minutes, with a minute break afterwards, which gives me a leisurely two minutes to figure out how to shut down whatever's starting all the fires.

* ''Manga/{{Golgo 13}}: Top Secret Episode'' features "Exact Time to Nuclear Missile Launch" in its final battle. Noteworthy in that you actually lose ''not'' at zero, but when the timer hits 0:13.

** In [[VideoGame/SpaceQuestionVTheNextMutation the fifth game]], ''you set off'' the Exact Time To Failure by activating the self-destruct sequence. It's exactly ten minutes, which again is about five minutes more than you need if you're slow.

-->Today, every living cell on Earth will be dead.
-->You ''had'' one chance.

* B.E.N. calculates this trope during the escape from ''Disney/TreasurePlanet''. They avoid failure by seconds.

* Done as part of a cinema in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII''. When Cid grapples with the decision to blast off in a rocket, incinerating a woman, Shera, who stayed behind to fix the oxygen tanks, a timer, normally reserved for gameplay purposes, pops up and counts down as dialogue rolls. Cid hits the button to abort at the last second. This ends up subverting the trope somewhat since, even though Shera was spared, cutting the engines damaged the rocket and caused the space program to lose all credibility, making it several years before another attempt into space is made. Before then, a town formed around the damaged rocket which Cid and Shera took residence in.
** And, in a later gameplay sequence, it's played straight with [[spoiler:escaping the rocket with or without the Huge Materia before it crashes into Meteor]].

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' loved this trope and has timed escapes pop up every so often. You're even subjected to one shortly after starting a new game!

** VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 did this with its timed missions as well. The fading to black thing.

** Done straight in ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars 2'' where on the missions to capture enemy laboratory before they destroy their weapons data, you are given a specific amount of days to invade before the data is destroyed. I always found it odd that getting there on the final day didn't result in getting a large amount of half deleted plans...

* It used to be the case that a GreenLantern ring needed recharging every twenty-four hours. Nowadays it needs recharging based on how much it's been used.

** In ''Film/{{Aliens}}'', Ripley searches for Newt inside the colony's atmospheric processing reactor while a computerized voice gives a minute-by-minute countdown as the reactor ticks its way towards becoming a "cloud of vapor the size of Nebraska." Probably justified in that the reactor's control systems, having real-time information on the temperature, pressure, etc. would be able to predict quite accurately the point at which it would go critical.
*** However, due to RuleOfCool, large parts of the reactor are blowing up and collapsing spectacularly ''prior'' to the main explosion. This makes the predictability of the countdown highly unlikely.

* Planet Namek during the Frieza Saga of ''Anime/DragonBallZ''; the planet was about to be destroyed, with "five minutes" mentioned at least once, for ''ten episodes''. Indeed, one episode had "two minutes" mentioned at the beginning, and "one minute" mentioned at the end. Later material reveals that Frieza [[AssPull pulled the number out of his ass.]] He had meant to instantly destroy the planet, but choked at the last moment and held back potentially because he didn't want to be ''on'' the planet when it blew up. He made up the "time remaining" [[IMeantToDoThat to make it seem like he did that on purpose]].

* Planet Namek during the Frieza Saga of ''Anime/DragonBallZ''; the planet was about to be destroyed, with "five minutes" mentioned at least once, for ''ten episodes''. Indeed, one episode had "two minutes" mentioned at the beginning, and "one minute" mentioned at the end. Later material reveals that Frieza [[AssPull pulled the number out of his ass.]] He had meant to instantly destroy the planet, but choked at the last moment and held back. He made up the "time remaining" [[IMeantToDoThat to make it seem like he did that on purpose]].

* The final storyline of ''The Amazing SpiderMan'', "Dying Wish", when a bunch of villains break Doc Ock/[[spoiler:Peter Parker]] from jail, it's revealed that his body only has 700 minutes left before it fails completely. The issue number with that revelation? 699.

* Happens twice in ''Film/StarTrekGenerations''.

** After the Enterprise-D is damaged by the Klingon attack, Geordie tells the bridge that "We're five minutes from a warp core breach." A few minutes later the computer says that there's one minute to warp core breach.

* Double subverted near the end of ''Film/TheManhattanProject'' - the homemade atomic bomb is accidentally armed and its display is turned on. It starts counting at 999 hours, so at first no one's worried about disarming it in time...until Paul realizes his timing mechanism isn't perfect and will speed up the clock as it goes on. The double subversion comes into play when he and Dr. Mathewson eventually remember that the degredation will result in exponential growth, so they can calculate how long it will take the timer to reach zero.

** [[EnsembleDarkhorse everyone's favorite]] [[GoldfishPoopGang purple octopus]] Ultros is trying to drop a four-ton weight on a character (bear with me). He says "N'ghaaa! This is heavier than I thought! It'll take me five minutes to drop it!" Yes, this means that you have exactly five minutes to stop him.