History Main / TeleFrag

* ''Manga/ToAruKagakuNoRailgun'': Kuroko explicitly states her teleporting one object into another displaces the material occupying the old space, regardless of what either object was. At one point, she tears down ''a building'' by teleporting sheets of glass into its support pillars. She also threatens to teleport her needles into people. She only tries this once, however, and it misses (the target was an illusion that she fell for).

** In Multiplayer ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'', for those lucky enough to have played

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* PlayedStraight in ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' where, if an enemy is standing on top of a Teleporter and a player uses the Teleporter, they are awarded a kill. A common strategy for Spies is to sap a Teleporter entrance and stand on top of it so that when the Engineer breaks the sapper, the Spy teleports through, kills the Engineer in doing so, and can sap his buildings with impunity.
** As a bit of trivia, the reason TF2 has telfrags is because Team Fortress was originally a mod for Doom, which is the trope namer.

** The Blood Magus prestige class in 3rd edition ''DungeonsAndDragons'' has this as an ability. You can teleport by simply entering one living being, and coming out of another one you know, wherever they are. It's normally harmless for everybody involved, but if you wish, you can make what the game charmingly calls a "catastrophic exit," literally exploding your way out of the destination point.

* In {{GURPS}} you simply can't teleport in this way. Even a CriticalFailure lands you in an open location.

* In {{Battletech}}, the odds of telefragging when a Jump Ship jumps are astronomically slim due to the vastness of space. However, the annihilation of whatever interplanetary medium matter was in the destination point when a ship jumps in-system emits an electromagnetic pulse which is easily detectable.

* In Russian humorous SF short story ''Monument'' by Yevgeniy and Lubov' Lukins [[TheIshmael the narrator]] "proves" that teleportation is impossible because of [[TeleFrag telefragging]]. Then his friend [[DieOrFly aquires]] [[StockSuperpowers the power of swap-porting]], that cuts the shape of his body and clothes out of any material. And covers the township with monuments to himself.

* In the HarryPotter universe, the Floo Network (basically magical teleport conduits) and use of Portkeys (charmed objects designed to transport the user to a designated spot) are monitored and regulated to avoid such collisions. Apparating is also restricted to adult wizards and witches for this reason, as there's a good chance that parts of the wizard or witch could fail to appear in the right places (a phenomenon known as "splinching"). This happens to Ron in ''Deathly Hallows'', and it's not pretty.

* Invoked by Doc in the third ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' film. He explains the reason they're out in the middle of the desert is because the Delorean will have plenty of run-off space in a wide-open area. Sending Marty back to a place that is populated or geographically unknown would be ''very'' dangerous idea, there's a risk he could easily crash into someone or something that once existed there.

** In Multiplayer ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'', for those lucky enough to have played

See also PortalSlam (when there's something in the way when you try to ''enter'' a teleportal). Can be used to defy InertiaIsACruelMistress by destroying the offending obstacle. The supertrope is teleporting things to anyplace that's inherently extremely dangerous even if it's not actually inside a solid object, such as into deep space, over lava, or 100 feet straight up.

** In Multiplayer ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'', for those lucky enough to have played over LAN and not Dial-up, nested telefrags were quite common. Player A respawns and Telefrags Player B, who respawns and Telefrags Player A who Telefrags Player B who Telefrags Player A ad infitum. Naturally, this problem decreases rapidly with the size of a map and quantity of respawn points on it. This actually happened in the LetsPlay of VideoGame/{{Daikatana}} (about 10 minutes into Lair of Medusa) due to a glitch, resulting in [[HilarityEnsues much hilarity]].
** Likewise, teleporting enemies can also telefrag the player.
* The teleport pads in ''{{VideoGame/Tribes}}'' (which either came with the base game or one of the most popular mods ironically played more than the real game itself) killed you if you stood on them when someone was coming through. It also would kill you if you were too heavy.
* Still possible, though a lot less likely, in ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2''. Don't crouch and melee a teleporter exit - you're likely to get [[LudicrousGibs 'sploded]].
** Telefrag is one of the two ways to kill an ubered player, the other being most enviromental hazards such as falls into bottomless pits.
** A popular strategy now is to sap a teleporter entrance, wait until the engineer repairs the exit (the sapper appears simultaneously on both the entrance and exit and can be destroyed by removing it from either end, [[FridgeLogic somehow]]), and then telefrag the engy, because he's probably standing on top of it to repair the thing.
** Although as an engineer, there is no death sweeter than telefragging an invisible spy on your teleporter.
** See also [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2haS-3b0xZ0 this video]].
* Though you can't teleport into anyone else, telepad mishaps can kill--once, even to advance the plot--in the ''VideoGame/{{Crusader}}'' games...and then in the second game, one gets a weapon to sabotage telepads, killing anyone incoming on them.
** You can telefrag ''yourself'' that way if the pad was supposed to be your escape route later on. Time to start the level over again...
* Ill-designed maps in old FPS games (or ones subjected to abuse beyond all reason) have been known to reach a state where each character returns into play before the previous one has had time to get out of the way, causing the creation of the gib fountain.
** It's a lot worse when you don't get telefragged by bad spawns. Spending the first five minutes of a round of ''VideoGame/{{Counter-Strike}}'' trying to get [[EnemyWithout separated]] from the person who spawned [[EnemyWithin into your head]] is not a good way to relax.
* In ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' multiplayer, if you try to go through a one way teleporter, and somebody else is in the receiving end, you'll be blocked out for quite some time. The guy blocking will have his screen go white and his controller vibrate, and then finally he'll die and the teleporter will be sent through, receiving a telefrag for his effeorts. However, since this takes time to do, the guy trying to teleport may end up screwed if he's relying on the teleporter to escape from death, and the guy blocking will be completely unharmed.
** This can also be a tactic: sit on the exit, and wait for someone to try to use it. When your screen starts going white, step back. The traveller generally won't have time to react to that "Teleporter is blocked" message on their screen, and will appear right in front of you, facing the other way. Free kill.
** Dropped in the Mac/PC port, where corking the exit is a major part of strategy. Unfortunately, there is still one ''very embarrassing'' type of telefrag: If unattended vehicles are set to respawn and you're standing at the wrong spawn point, it will literally pounce on top of you for an instant kill.
* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'' as well as ''{{VideoGame/The Legend of Zelda Oracle|Games}} of Ages'', avoid this with travel between their two worlds/time periods. If you try to transport yourself into a solid object you'll flash for a bit and then be kicked back to your original position, able to adjust your position and try again.
* A boss in ''VideoGame/{{Castlevania}}: Order of Ecclesia'' uses a glyph to pass through walls. Absorb the glyph while he's inside the wall and he dies instantly.
* ''VideoGame/{{Iji}}'''s Komato Assassins carry a device that allows them to teleport around at will. They mentally map out the area prior to the fight, and are trained to stop pursuit if the prey leaves that area to avoid teleporting into a wall. As part of the backstory, Assassin Asha got too wrapped up in the pursuit of an enemy, ignored his training, and lost his arm in precisely this fashion.
** Also, Sector 8 has a Trapmine - an item you can set on a teleport pad that goes off when anyone teleports through it, instagibbing the sucker that uses it (except in version 1.6) and rendering the teleporter unusable. [[spoiler:Do NOT use it when Dan tells you to: save it for a later teleporter in the same sector, where it is much more needed]].
* The Malor spell in ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}}'' involved teleportation via punching in the proper code for the desired area. The catch? Punch it in wrong and you appear inside a rock or some other undesirable place, [[TotalPartyKill killing the entire party]].
* In ''[[http://www.roblox.com Roblox]]'', the [=CFrame=] system actively tries to keep players (and other objects) from sticking into each other, even if they have disabled collision. (Sidestepped by scripting and simultaniously anchoring the bricks, preventing flying stuff from going everywhere. For non-[=CanCollideable=] objects, the physics object "[=BodyPosition=]" also works.) Sometimes it also leads to players stacked up on a [=SpawnLocation=]. Telefragging must be deliberately scripted into a place (and even then it's hard.) The trope is also played straight with Regeneration Buttons: If a player stand where an object is created when the button is pushed, they are trapped inside until either they reset themselves (many in-game items have been created to do this in the most humorous way possible) or a benevolent player triggers the regen again, which normally has a delay timer. Sometimes, a place creator may actually put the regen button right below where the seat of a vehicle appears, causing the player to instantly get control of the vehicle. Kid-friendly LudicrousGibs result if a player dies in any way (being a Lego-like game, they literally fall apart, no blood involved, though a player's head may roll away to who-knows-where, taking the camera with it since the camera only watches the head, not the player as a whole), and if they were the driver of a vehicle, it also falls apart.
* {{Achron}} is set to feature a time specific version of this called "chronofragging". When a unit travels through time, if the location at the arrival time is occupied, the unit will chronofrag whatever unit it runs into, dealing significant damage to both units. This can most easily happen if you set a unit near a chronoporter. If the unit is standing idly for a while and gets sent back in time, it will still be standing in that spot in the past (since it hasn't moved) and will frag itself. Traditional Telefragging, however, is averted. They just teleport slightly to the side.
* In ''StarControl'' and ''StarControl 2'', the special power of the [[FlyingSaucer Arilou spaceship]] is random teleport through the battlefield (a Colombus-effect bubble of space around planet). There is a small non-cumulative chance every time you teleport to end up inside the planet. This doesn't end well for you.
* In ''MightyFlipChamps'', teleporting into a wall would kill you.
** In its SpiritualSuccessor ''MightySwitchForce'', you can (and are occasionally required to) telefrag enemies by switching while an enemy is standing in front of a background block. You can quite easily do the same thing to yourself if you aren't paying attention or your timing is off, and in fact this becomes one of the biggest hazards in some later stages.
* Before Legend Entertainment got awarded with the job of making ''VideoGame/UnrealIITheAwakening'', they made a FPS based on ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' universe with a magic system that used Ter'Angreal as the weapons. One of the Ter'Angreal available in multiplayer was "Swap Places", which experienced players could use to set up a TeleFrag on their opponents. For example, sic Swap Places on your opponent, don a Fire Shield and jump into the lava. Or use it to drop the player into the ring of Explosive Wards you set up beforehand; if they're running, momentum should do the rest. Or fire it at the guy who trapped you in ice with Freeze.
** There's also Shift, which shifts you ahead about 5 feet and breaks the lock of any tracking weapons on you. It's good for escapes, but it's possible to telefrag yourself into, say, an incoming fireball.
* In ''VideoGame/StarTrekEliteForce'' multiplayer, if two or more players (or bots) try to enter a teleporter simultaneously, both will be killed in the ensuing "transporter accident."
* The original ''RedAlert'' let the Allied chronosphere perform this on when used on an APC, always disintegrating the passengers. You could only chronoshift into an empty space, though, avoiding the most common kind of telefrag.
** The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment Incident]] that inspired the Chronosphere allegedly inflicted this upon the unfortunate crewman of the ship involved.
** ''Red Alert 2'' enabled it as a viable tactic. One could even transport enemy units, meaning you could force a friendly-fire telefrag. By RA 3 you can destroy a construction vehicle using a Chronosphere and a dog.
*** RA 2 also features accidental teleportation: if you chronoshift units onto uneven ground, units that end up on higher elevation may end up inside the ground and explode.
** For a more interesting variant, you could also chronoshift enemy land units into water and watch them die. Sadly, the expansion made this less useful, as more amphibious units got introduced in Red Alert 3. Fortunately, this tactic also works with impassable pieces of terrain, so even an amphibious unit can be telefraged if you have cliff or even a building handy.
* In ''CityOfHeroes'', you can only teleport (or teleport other people) to places you can see, but this is mainly due to game mechanincs.
** Additionally, the game mechanics actively prevent this from happening; if someone is standing at another character's teleport destination, one of the two characters will be pushed aside.
* Mentioned in ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'' in some {{Mooks}} random dialogue when examining a corpse, "The subject... appears to have been ripped apart from the inside... probably a failed teleport.[[http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Dr._Grossman]]"
* You can pull this off in ''{{Spelunky}}'' if you're [[{{YASD}} incredibly careful about it.]] [[spoiler:The main use is to kill shopkeepers without it being counted against you.]]
* In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion's'' ''Shivering Isles'' expansion, the Daedric prince Sheogorath (the ruler of the dimension the game takes place in) executes those who break his laws by teleporting the condemned to a point well above the execution grounds, and letting them fall the rest of the way there.
* In ''EternalDarkness''' Trapper Dimension, the player character uses teleporters to move throughout the area. If a {{Mook}} happens to be standing where the exit is, they'll be reduced to little chunks. There's usually a [[GiantMook Horror]] standing on at least one of the exits.
* ''VideoGame/{{Gauntlet}}'' had teleport squares; beaming in from (not on) one of these could TeleFrag just about anything. Even Death.
* ''Videogame/EYEDivineCybermancy'' features "The Dragon" psychic ability. When it is used while targeting an organic enemy, it'll instantly teleport the player inside the enemy, and cause the enemy to explode in a [[LudicrousGibs shower of blood.]]
* In ''[[VideoGame/DarkForcesSaga Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast]]'', characters enter and respawn in a versus match through a beam of energy. Getting hit by one of these beams results in getting "crushed into another dimension by x". A more amusing example is setting the number of bots to 10 and starting up a match in the Imperial Labs: Raven map. Because of how incredibly small the map is compared to other areas, spawn points are cluttered up, if not, overlap with one another. No matter what you do, you will ALWAYS start up the game automatically telefragging an enemy or an ally, or several people at once.
* In ''PlanetSide 2'', vehicles are constructed instantly on the vehicle pads when a player requests one at a vehicle terminal. Any player or object standing on the pad when the vehicle is built will instantly die, with no exceptions. Pity the poor tank pilot who accidentally backs up onto a pad when another player on his empire builds a Flash ATV
* In ''[[Videogame/{{Tribes}} Tribes 2]]'', vehicle pads will instantly kill any player standing in the way of the vehicle it's about to start building. Usually it accidentally telefrags an ally, but some players bait enemies into flying at them over the vehicle pad, then immediately build a flying vehicle as the enemy passes over, [[WeaponizedTeleportation instantly gibbing the enemy player]]
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[[folder:Web Comics]]
* The ''Webcomic/AwkwardZombie'' comic in the illustration for this trope.
* A variation in ''Webcomic/{{Goblins}}'': Big Ears has an axe which is enchanted so it will pass harmlessly through paladins rather than harming them. When the party fight [[KnightTemplar Kore]], Thaco has him throw the axe at Kore with a rope attached to it. The axe pulls the rope through Kore, but Thaco cuts the rope before it passes through completely, removing the enchantment and leaving part of the rope trapped painfully in Kore's body.
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[[folder:Web Original]]
* Deconstructed thoroughly in ''Literature/FineStructure'', when [[http://qntm.org/taphophobia Anne Poole disappears during a teleporter experiment]]. They find her [[http://qntm.org/ashmore inside a mountain]]. [[spoiler:Alive. And functionally invulnerable. [[BuriedAlive After being encased in a coal seam for a year and a half]]. [[GoMadFromTheIsolation Alone]].]]
* [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-084 SCP-84]], an area who's "center" is a radio tower, can cause objects to randomly "jump" it's positions, causing "overlaps," which have been described as "markedly detrimental effect on living tissue."
** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-595 SCP-595]] was an experimental US ship, in attempt to create either a teleporting ship or ship that can bend light around itself. Problem, many of the crew could be teleported into the walls and fused with the bulkheads, still ''[[BodyHorror alive.]]''
* Exploited in [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/CROWLEY Crowley]] by the character of the [[AntiAntiChrist same name]] to kill a demon, the spell has mass displacement so only the demon is hurt when Crowley teleports inside him and rips his way out.
* Happens in an episode of [[YogscastMinecraftSeries Voltz]] with Sips and Sjin, who were inside their base when it ended up being restored to the way it was- that is, pure mountain- by a WorldHealingWave. As a result, [[CrowningMomentOfFunny they suffocated to death]].
* Phir Sē from ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' has a teleporter working for him that can do this.
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[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'': Sponge Bob visits Sandy and sees that she made a teleporter. Because he's getting late for work, he asks her to send him to the front of the Krusty Krab...just as Squidward was opening the door. They fuse together. Sandy tries hard to separate them but fails. Squidward has to perform, so he tries to hide the SpongeBob parts under a cape, but they are revealed. However, the audience seems to be impressed by this "freak" and they applaud. Sandy charges in with a "separator" she just invented, and not hearing Squidward's screams to leave them (he loves the applause), separates them. As most people get bored by the "normal" Squidward and SpongeBob and leave, Squidward freaks out and starts hitting random buttons on the separator to try to fuse back together. It explodes, making Squidward, SpongeBob, Sandy, Mr. Krab and Mrs. Puff all fuse together into a [[NightmareFuel disgusting blob]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'', Amazo can use powers [[MegaManning copied from superheroes]], but only one at a time. After it used Martian Manhunter's power to [[IntangibleMan phase through]] an attack, Superboy stuck his fist inside its head as it switched to Superman's power to counterattack. [[YourHeadAsplode It didn't end well for Amazo]].
** In "Before the Dawn", M'gann (who also has phasing powers) suffers this when she attempts to phase through a door and a villain shifts the density of the door to match hers. Doesn't slice and dice, but it does knock her out until someone drags her out of the wall.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' episode "Lesson Zero", Twilight Sparkle deliberately teleports into a beach ball, causing the ball to expand and pop (with seemingly no harm to herself.)
** No ''physical'' harm, anyway. Can't say the same for her [[SanitySlippage state of mind...]]
*** She was completely nuts already, anyway.

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* In the [[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe]] series of games, ships travel between different sectors of space through jumpgates. Jumpgates are two way, meaning that ships both enter and leave sectors from them. Meaning, you can use your jumpdrive to jump to a distant sector for a mission... right as a 5 kilometer long vessel is entering the jumpgate's event horizon (where ''you'' are). The Terran sectors in ''X3: Terran Conflict'' were notorious for this, as they have very active military patrols which fly between the smaller Terran gates very often.
** In fairness, the devs did consider this trope. The gates and trans-orbital accelerators have a sort of traffic light system, and only the player flying on manual can run a red, so to speak. When time is not of the essence (i.e. any time you're not in danger of being shot to pieces), use the autopilot to go through the gate and you won't have any problems.

** Not to mention what happens when you open a jumppoint ''[[DivideByZero inside]]'' an active jumpgate. It's called the "Bonehead Maneuver". If you don't have a very very fast ship you won't get out of the blast radius, and not even warships built by the First Ones will survive it.

** In Multiplayer ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'', for those lucky enough to have played over LAN and not Dial-up, nested telefrags were quite common. Player A respawns and Telefrags Player B, who respawns and Telefrags Player A who Telefrags Player B who Telefrags Player A ad infitum. Naturally, this problem decreases rapidly with the size of a map and quantity of respawn points on it. This actually happened in the LetsPlay of {{Daikatana}} (about 10 minutes into Lair of Medusa) due to a glitch, resulting in [[HilarityEnsues much hilarity]].

** In the actual card game, this is how some visualize Counter Target Creature Spell effects. The creature arrives on the battlefield, halfway through stepping out of the portal, the counterspell is cast, and the portal closes. Resulting in bit of a mess for the janitors.

->'''The Doctor:''' [[Squick You're breathing him]].

->'''The Doctor:''' You're breathing him.

[[quoteright:330:[[Webcomic/AwkwardZombie http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/comic79.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:330:[[VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft Watch where you blink.]]]]

** In "Before the Dawn", M'gann (who also has phasing powers) suffers this when she attempts to phase through a door and a villain shifts the density of the door to match hers.