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Voice with an Internet Connection

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"Okay XANA, what do you have in store for us this time?"

"I'll send you the valve locations as you go. Damn if the internet isn't a thing of beauty."
Zeke, inFAMOUS 2

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 world to the player or viewer, and the second is to give a solo character someone to talk to, allowing character development for somebody who'd otherwise be silent for the duration. If the main is the strong and silent type the Voice talks more, sometimes saying what the main normally would.

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. Naturally, therefore, the 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 more physically present bookworm. However, the "internet connection" needn't be literal — every once in a while you may see, for example, a distant wizard sending the results of his scrying.

This character is prone to dying, probably because they're a mentor of sorts and the job comes with its occupational hazards. They may also betray or demoralize the protagonist, or in video games, the player.

Related to The Voice, Voice-Only Cameo, Expositron 9000 and Mr. Exposition, the Voice with an Internet Connection is distinguished from them by being a disembodied character who advances the plot as well as a character with a distinct personality.

An inversion of the above may be considered a subtrope, where you are the Voice with an Internet Connection and you have to assist a character in a remote and dangerous situation; these are generally variants of the Visual Novel with branching story paths and multiple endings, and were popularized by the mobile game Lifeline.

Compare Mission Control and Earpiece Conversation.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
    • Diamond is Unbreakable: During the last fight, Yoshikage Kira is able pinpoint where Josuke is inside a house to attack with compressed air bombs. Josuke finds out the trick is because Kira had been communicating with his father, who was secretly hiding in Hayato's pocket.
    • Golden Wind: After learning The Boss' face, the team is contacted by an Anonymous Benefactor, revealed to be Polnareff, who explains to them the hidden truth of the Stand arrow and arranges a meeting with them at Rome's coliseum to help them defeat The Boss.
  • 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.
  • All the characters in Ghost in the Shell have neural implants that allows them to communicate with each other entirely by thinking without any need for either microphones or headsets, which they regularly use for silent coordination during operations.
  • 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. Subverted in the 2015 series where he doesn't bother disguising his voice.
  • Juiz from Eden of the East. Just a female voice on a cellphone. She is also scarily competent at doing just about anythingnote  one asks of her, usually within several seconds of the request being made. She's actually an extremely powerful AI with connections all over the nation, her actual processors being housed in roving trailers.
  • Radio communication in Future GPX Cyber Formula. Truth in Television, and an effective way to establish or break drivers' mentality.
  • All units in World Trigger have operators who assist combatants by relaying information such as the enemy's location and the current situation.

    Comic Books 
  • Batman:
    • Barbara Gordon starts serving as Batman's occasional mission controller under the codename Oracle after the events of The Killing Joke leaves her paraplegic, eventually starting her own team which she acts as mission control for.
    • In the 2009 Batgirl series, Calculator's daughter Wendy, following her paralysis in Teen Titans, takes on the alias of Proxy to serve as mission control in Oracle's place when necessary.
    • In the pre-New 52 continuity, Red Robin has a controller in the form of the former Anarky, now paralyzed but wired into the Net.
    • In post-52 We Are Robin, the Robins are given cryptic messages by The Nest, their recruiter who is actually Alfred. Shug-R is introduced in #3 as also serving this role; a Robin who doesn't go out in the field but is very good at looking things up for the others.
  • The Punisher: The Punisher has had a couple of controllers, most famously Microchip.
  • Aleph in Global Frequency, who was hired specifically for being a Brilliant, but Lazy internet whiz. Her job is to sit in a chair, look up information for dozens of agents simultaneously, and save the world. The issue that shows her backstory also gives her a chance to shine in the present, when the Global Frequency headquarters is attacked and she has to take out the invaders on her own.
  • Deadpool: Weasel in the past. He serves as an example of one who eventually breaks away from his guy in the field, and not exactly amicably.
  • Secret Avengers: The Beast sometimes serves in this role when the others are in the field.
  • DMZ: Matty's old friend Eve Lindon is briefly found by the military and enlisted to be this for him, while he's stranded in the middle of the largest abandoned Manhattan, providing the first up-close report for the opposing side of the civil war. He quickly, and painfully, finds out that she doesn't have his best interests at heart, though.
  • Wonder Woman:
    • Wonder Woman (1942): Paula von Gunther acts as a sort of prototype voice with an internet connection, as the internet was not yet invented. Diana, Steve and the Holliday Girls would call Paula up on their Mental Radios while in the field to ask for her help and advice as she was an Omnidisciplinary Scientist. Sometimes this resulted in them needing to bring something, or someone, back to her lab. She was also Mission Control for extraterrestrial adventures since the mode of transportation was usually her teleporter.
    • Wonder Woman (1987): Oracle organizes the fight against Circe remotely from Gotham when Circe kidnaps and transforms most of the male hero population.

    Fan Works 
  • The Secret Return of Alex Mack: Willow/Acid Burn acts as Alex's Mission Control, with Jack frequently chiming in as well. Alex does frequently see them both in person, though.
  • In the Doctor Who fanfic "Vox et Praeterea Mysteria" by John Elliot, Ace is in 20 Minutes into the Future London when DalekOswin seizes control of her travel pod for help with a bomb planted on Boris Island, communicating with her through the pod's speakers, and later through an earpiece.
  • The Victors Project: As in the novel, this is the primary role of mentors. Ones who do it particularly well include Beetee (who sends Wiress crackers as signals when she has another source of food), Ermine (who sends her second tribute running shoes as a message to flee from an approaching fire), and Cora (who sends Cecelia rowan leaves to remind her of Rowenna, a tribute she'd previously killed, telling her she needs to be ruthless and backstab her last opponent during their declared truce period to win the Deadly Game). Ineffective ones include Eamon (who is deliberately sabotaging his tribute due to having bet against him), cloudcuckoolander Meave (who sends a nonessential gift after her tribute is already dead) and Virtus (who sends a tribute a flammable oxygen tank in the middle of a forest fire).
  • Discussed in TRON fanfic "Up and Apart" where Jet Bradley is acting as this for Sam Flynn.
    In the movies and TV shows, the "voice with an Internet connection" works out of an unmarked van somewhere in the parking garage, not sitting in a smoker's shed with a laptop and smartphone, both loaded with a ton of home-brew hacking apps. It reeks of stale cigarettes and rotting lunches in here.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • This is a plot-point in The Accountant (2016), where an unseen woman arranges jobs and hacks new identities for the title character, a high-functioning autistic accountant for various dangerous criminal organizations. The end of the movie reveals her to be a low-functioning autistic who can only communicate via her computer.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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).
  • Connie is this for Frank and Will in Unstoppable.
  • Frequency: Johnny, the main character serves as this to his father, when their ham radios somehow allow them to talk through time, and he's able to give his father life-saving information and advice based on his knowledge of the future, while being unable to keep up a physical presence.
  • From Serenity, the aptly named Mr Universe.
    Mr Universe: From here to the eyes and the ears of the 'verse, that's my motto.
  • The Dead: Subverted with Frank, who Brian calls, clearly hoping he can be this only to find out the situation is hopeless everywhere and Frank can't tell him anything useful to his situation.
  • In After Earth, Cypher is injured in the crash, requiring Kitai to venture out alone with a two-way communicator that lets his father see everything that's going on and remain in constant contact with Kitai.
  • In Galaxy Quest, four nerdy fanboys guide the hero through the underbelly of a starship via interstellar vox.
  • Jurassic City: Warden Lewis does this briefly, using his surveillance cameras and knowledge of the dinosaurs to give Pippi and the others information.
  • Merlin from Kingsman: The Secret Service. Particularly during the climax where he feeds Eggsy instructions and vital information while trying to thwart Valentine's plan.
    • The Second movie has Eggsy's friend Roxy do this in a non work related setting, having an Earpiece Conversation where she briefs him on royal protocol for his date with the Princess of Denmark.
  • This seems to be how programs interpret commands from their users in TRON. First we see Kevin Flynn simply typing on his minicomputer, cheerfully saying, "Okay, Clu, tonight we're going to check everything in the right-hand column." Then the scene shifts to the Grid, with Flynn talking in a more direct voice and Clu actively responding vocally as if over a radio link. This is further demonstrated later on when Tron links up with Alan in the I/O tower.
  • Resident Evil: Apocalypse Features Dr. Charles Ashford, who contacts various survivors in the city, offering them useful information and a way out of the city if they'll reduce his daughter from the school she's trapped in.
  • Rim of the World: General Khoury fills this role for the final act, providing the kids' context and instructions about using Excalibur over the computer from his far away military bunker.
  • Train to Busan: Seok-woo calls his assistant, Kim, a few times for information on Safe Zones.
  • Spider-Man: Homecoming shows what happens when one tries to improvise this trope rather than have it be a regular occurrence. During the homecoming dance, Ned really wants to be "The guy in the chair" and tries to be as helpful to Peter as possible while the latter is trying to stop the Vulture's plans. However, he can only provide information as fast as he can type and as fast as the school's shoddy internet connection will allow, leading him to use two to three computers in the school's computer lab at any given time, loading information simultaneously and spinning his chair back and forth between them, so he's not really that helpful when things start to go south and Peter needs information instantly. He's inevitably caught when a teacher confronts him for sneaking through the school while the dance is going on, and he has to cover his tracks by claiming he was watching pornography.

    Literature 
  • In Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series, Jane, an AI created from an alien-made psychic disturbance on the internet. In fact, Ender shutting off the earpiece at one point results in Jane overreacting and informing the Starways Congress about the xenologists teaching things to the Piggies. In turn, the Congress ends up sending a fleet to evacuate and/or obliterate the colony.
  • In Artemis Fowl, Foaly.
    Foaly: I'm right there with you, darling. Unless you trigger a land mine, in which case I'm in the Operation Room.
  • 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. Or it could have been a goddess.
  • 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.
  • The title character of The Amazing Life of Dead Eric: Eric uploads his mind into a military supercomputer, but accidentally moves it entirely instead of just copying it. This kills his body. So what does he do? He gets the scientists at the military base to install a wireless internet connection into his brain, sets up his body to run on batteries and goes on as if nothing had happened. So he is basically the Voice with an Internet Connection (almost literally) for his own body.
  • Haymitch from The Hunger Games, much to the chagrin of the main character.
  • Corpies reveals that every Hero wears an earpiece that connects him or her to Dispatch, who tells Heroes if they are needed and provides information. As far as anyone knows, no one has actually met Dispatch. The only thing everyone knows is that she is female and sounds vaguely European.
  • Domina: Mary Christina, more commonly known as MC, serves as this for the entire city. Most people have to deal with programs she wrote that use her voice to interact with people, but the heroes are high enough priority that they usually get to talk to the real MC. She walks them through missions and connects them to their allies. In chapter 321, it is revealed that MC is an Artificial Intelligence, created by Mary Christina Asimov with help from Isaac Clarke.
  • This is the role Assistants play in C.T. Phipps' Cyberpunk series Agent G. They provide information and support via the Hollywood Cyborg Super-Soldier's cybernetic connection to them. Marissa, the titular G, is noted to also be a Playful Hacker as well as his Morality Pet Love Interest. She's also a mole for the NSA.
  • False Caster (Alexandre Dumas) from Fate/strange Fake serves as one to his master. While he's too weak to participate in the war (like with Caster of Red (Shakespeare)), his reason for refusing to participate actually comes from the fact that he's The Hedonist. Unfortunately for his master, Dumas has discovered Internet memes.
  • Down to a Sunless Sea features a pre-internet voice through the character of Juan Silvia Santos, a Portuguese University student and Ham radio operator who briefly becomes the sole source of information for a plan looking for a place to land in the aftermath of a nuclear war that broke out while it was transversing the Atlantic. Juan picks up their distress message and through his knowledge of the area, and some maps he gets out helps them find a nearby place to land before they run out of fuel, while they provide him with some information about how to avoid the radioactive fallout (at least in the short-term).
  • Agent G: Assistants have this role in the Society. They are connected to their Letters via cybernetics and with Delphi (a Benevolent A.I.) via their computers to provide instant support in the field. G's Assistant, Marissa is also an undercover NSA agent.

    Live-Action TV 
  • 24:
    • Chloe O'Brian, though it was probably around midway through Season 4 that Chloe became the definitive example of this for the show.
    • Jamey Farrell and Nina Meyers before the revelation that she was Evil All Along in Season 1.
    • Michelle Dressler in Season 2.
    • Adam Kaufman and Kim Bauer shared this with Chloe in Season 3.
    • Edgar Stiles and Sarah Gavin in Season 4, around the time when Chloe was shunted aside.
    • Stiles also appeared with Chloe in Season 5.
    • Janis Gold in Season 7.
    • Arlo Glass in addition to Chloe in Season 8.
    • Jordan Reed and later Gavin Leonard in "Live Another Day".
  • In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Simmons plays this part for Skye (through an earpiece) when she gets into a party run by Corrupt Corporate Executive Ian Quinn.
    Skye: I could get used to this. It's like Siri, if it worked.
  • Sydney went through several of these in Alias, given the "super-spy" premise of the show. Her main handlers were Dixon (when working for SD-6) and Vaughn (when working for the CIA), but her mother, her father, Marshall, Kendall and Rachel all filled the role at various times.
  • Angel: In Stranger to the Sun, Franklin Ayers-Bishop and Cordelia trade emails about how to save Wesley and stop the villain, but they never meet.
  • Orwell for The Cape. Interestingly, she is the Big Bad's daughter.
  • 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.
  • Penelope Garcia in Criminal Minds and Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior. To the point where, if Garcia has to be on-site, something really bad has happened.
  • On Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, Russ "Monty" Montgomery is almost always stationed in the US while the rest of the team travel the world. He communicates with them by either headset, cell phone, or video call.
  • Doctor Who: In "42", Martha, working her way through a set of password-sealed doors on an imperiled spaceship in the future, has to phone her mother to get her to look up the answer for one of the trivia questions that the passwords are the answer to, because there's only one chance per door or the whole system locks down.
  • The aptly-named Mister Voice in GoGo Sentai Boukenger.
  • In Healer, Healer's Ahjumma is this, functioning as his eyes and ears while he's on a mission: a Hollywood Hacker whom her police archnemesis (and former subordinate) describes as having "hacking skills like unto a god."
  • 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. Fortunately the three bridge bunnies still have some job security: one is Da Chief, another is the sassy Sexy Secretary, the third is the Sidekick Chop Suey. Also, all three of them have varying degrees of technical expertise.
  • Basically the purpose of Allison on Kratts' Creatures except she had an Omniscient Database rather than the Internet. And she could somehow follow the brothers' adventures on a monitor even though they were explicitly not being followed by a camera crew in-universe. And the footage was edited in spite of it supposedly being live.
  • Leverage uses this all the time, usually with Hardison acting as the Voice. Then there was Chaos, his Evil Counterpart for another crew. Nate and Sophie also spend their fair shares of time on Voice duty, although about half the time they're also actively working in the field.
  • 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. This show may be the Trope Codifier in the "with Internet" form, since the controllers clearly had access to something like the Internet. (When the show was made, AOL was brand new, CompuServe was hip and hot, college students were just starting to get email addresses, and the Web was still years away.)
  • Regularly in Mission: Impossible, at least one character will be remotely monitoring the others' situation through explained audio and video feed (i.e. hidden wireless camera on other members' brooches). Not that it's useful, since a villain will almost always accidentally chance upon the other member right before a major commercial break, but a few times they do help the other member talk their way out. Making this trope older than the Internet.
  • Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide has iTeacher who teaches from home.
  • Finch to Reese in Person of Interest. Subverted in that he leaves the Internet Connection to get physically involved in the Mystery of the Week fairly frequently.
    • And then inverted when Reese is recuperating from a gunshot wound sustained in the previous episode.
    • Played for laughs when Reese's protectee asks him who he's talking to. He responds, "Tech support."
  • 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.) When Chloe leaves, Tess takes over the Mission Control gig, but she has less of a chance to take over this role due to the various problems (including the VRA forcing the team to shut the Watchtower down) in season ten.
  • In Warehouse 13, the agents in the field will often call back to the Warehouse to get more info on what they might be dealing with from the person left behind, usually Artie, Claudia or Leena. Claudia will use the Internet, but Leena and Artie will use the Warehouse databse of good ol' paper files instead.
  • The (nixed) Phone-a-Friend lifeline on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? was basically a time-limited version of this. It was supposedly cut because there was no way to check whether or not the friend was using the Internet to answer the question (which wasn't against the rules, but was a Game-Breaker nevertheless).
  • 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.
  • Whiskey Cavalier: NSA hacker Edgar is a rare character who hates being this, and would rather be in the field.
  • Z Nation: Citizen Z spends the series holed up in his remote observation post, following The Party by satellite and giving them information and instructions on where to go and what to do.
  • Lost: George Minkowski and later his assistant Regina from the freighter are examples who communicate with some characters, while keeping others communications form getting in or out, when the freighter arrives at the island (although they prove to be among its better crew members). The fact that the temporal displacement of the island (such as a body of someone killed on the ship being sent back in time an washing ashore on the island at a time when he's alive on the ship) makes both of them seem nuts at times adds to the oddness of the situation.

    Podcasts 
  • In The Adventure Zone: Balance, Angus McDonald joins the Bureau to feed the boys intel through their Stones of Farspeech (basically fantasy Bluetooth headsets).

    Radio 

    Roleplay 
  • SOTF-TV has the team mentors, which every once in a while give advice to players on their team on how to play the game. Some of the "advice" from specific mentors are... dubious at best, though.

    Tabletop Games 
  • In early editions of Shadowrun Deckers were frequently accused of being this. 4th edition fixed that problem by having most high-security sites air-gap their local Matrix so the decker has to at least be in the same building as the rest of the party and Augmented Reality removed their requirement to "jack in" while the others went and did something else.

    Video Games 
  • ANNO: Mutationem: Ayane primarily contacts Ann through the use of her Paipai drone that displays a full hologram of herself as she's being mended for her paraplegic treatment while at home.
  • The Blackpine Outbreak: The voice on your radio wants you to come to him to help with his infection.
  • Fever Cabin: The previous owner of the cabin you're staying in contacts you with a radio at the beginning of each night. He tells you of what new thing to expect each night.
  • Mirror's Edge has Mercury, Faith's fellow runner and mentor, who guides her on her rooftop routes using the (presumably hacked) city plans on the computer in his hideout. He also berates her if she's taking too long...
    • Miller becomes one near the end of the game.
    • Mirror's Edge under water, i.e. Hydrophobia Prophecy, has Scoot, who even sounds much like Merc.
  • The Obscura Experiment: The Captain of the ship serves this role, communicating with Priya from her quarters over a communicator.
  • Phoning Home: The A.I. of ION's ship is able to communicate with him over long distances, likely via a built-in wireless communication.
  • All three player characters in Aliens vs. Predator (2010) have at least one each:
    • The Matriarch in the Alien campaign.
    • In the Marine campaign, the Rookie has two - Tequila serves as this for the first half of the campaign, and for the remainder of the game, the role is filled by Katya.
    • Spartan in the Predator campaign.
  • Alice Murray and "S3kshun8" in Army of Two; S3kshun8 has no voiced lines and only speaks in Leet Lingo, so in order to understand what he's saying requires understanding of 1337 and fast eyes.
  • Battlefield: Bad Company has B-Company assisted by radio operator Mike-One-Juliet, on which Sweetwater has a big crush without ever having met or even talked to her. He's constantly pestering Redford to give her messages from him and affectionately calls her "Miss July". When the four soldiers are sacrificed and abandoned, she takes the risk of acting against orders and provides them with intelligence to get her boys back home safely. Though she's usually very professional, she seems to hope for them to share a part of the (stolen) gold with her.
  • BioShock: Atlas, your guide via short-wave radio through most of the game. All other NPCs in the game seem to have this ability as well, though Atlas is the most prominent and helpful, in terms of gameplay, at least. Plot, on the other hand... In the second game, his role is filled by Augustus Sinclair due to Atlas's death as the Final Boss.
  • In most of the Splinter Cell games, Lambert (and occasionally Grimsdottir and Brunton).
  • Deus Ex Universe had several of these, starting with Alex Jacobson as your tutor. Explained in-game with nanotechnology providing the audio and video uplinks. Somewhat unusual for the trope, you get to meet everyone who communicates with you this way "in person", except for the AIs Daedalus and Icarus — though you do meet Helios "in person" in the last mission.
    • The Nameless Mod has Evil Invasion or That Guy (depending on faction). The first you meet in person, the 2nd you can meet a hologram of, created because he is too lazy to leave his apartment (he shows up in person in the WC ending). The Nameless Mod also uses the infolink as a game mechanic. As you can't save while it's active, they proceed to have a character repeatedly call you during a very precarious jumping puzzle. The Nameless Mod allows the player to connect to the mod's IRC channel ingame; it is explicitly suggested (in loading screens) that he use it for help.
    • 2027: Titan and its subroutine and Xander fill in on this role for the majority of the game. Other characters will fill it as well as the game progresses.
    • Deus Ex: Human Revolution Sarif, Pritchard and Malik fill in this role. Other characters also gain this ability, making Adam Jensen wonder how people keep getting his info link frequency.
    Tong: Ancient Chinese secret.
  • Commissioner Rowdy Betters in First Encounter Assault Recon.
  • Any and all of the radio/Codec contacts in the Metal Gear games — including the "cut to black and screaming" bit for the Game Over screens if the hero is killed. Although, the video and audio feed is explained by use of the radio on the main character/nanomachines in the bloodstream.
  • Hardgrove in Black Market. Except for when he's lying.
  • Inverted in a stroke of genius in Operator's Side, if poorly executed. YOU are the voice on the other end, trapped in the control center of a monster-infested space station, helping the heroine through the puzzles and combat in the game. Technical limitations for the voice control were the main flaw — but the idea was solid.
  • Metroid
  • Alister Fletcher and Zip from Tomb Raider: Legend and Tomb Raider: Underworld (although in Underworld they don't talk much and Alister dies). Zip is originally introduced in the forth chapter of Tomb Raider Chronicles.
  • Marathon by Bungie had the artificial intelligences (Leela, Durandal, Tycho, Thoth, and... that thing) as well as Blake and T'Fear. The marine Security Officer never says a word.
  • Oni had Shinatama (a robot, sort of). Also by Bungie.
  • Halo (yet another Bungie-originated series with this):
    • The AI Cortana, who is usually inside the Master Chief's suit.
    • In Halo 2, when playing as the Arbiter, the Voice is usually supplied by Tartarus.
    • In Halo 3, the role of Voice with an Internet Connection is generally played by Commander Miranda Keyes or Sergeant Johnson, until late game when the Chief rescues Cortana.
    • In Halo: Reach, this is shared between Colonel Holland and Auntie Dot, neither of whom even have character models.
    • In Halo 4's Spartan Ops, Miller is usually the one doing this, though both Palmer and Roland occasionally take up the role too.
    • The series in general is very good at mixing in this trope with its absence to build tension and emphasize those moments when your character is really on their own, such as Halo: Combat Evolved's "343 Guilty Spark", Halo 2's "Uprising", and Halo 3's "Cortana".
  • In Samurai Jack: The Shadow of Aku, a scientist in one of the later levels begins communicating with Jack claiming he needs his audio help to find a computer. He explains he secretly slipped a device on Jack, and Jack expresses uncomfortability with that.
  • A rare fantasy example would be Zyzyx, the protagonist's familiar demon in Sacrifice. While he's actually present on the battlefield, since he's an immaterial spirit and unable to do anything besides observe and speak he's functionally equivalent to this trope.
  • The Advisor from Star Wars: Republic Commando.
  • Similarly, in the game Dark Messiah the main character has the sorceress Xana in his head. Xana is actually a demon, and near the end of the game after a bit of near death you get to turn into her. It's a useless power, but looks cool and for the briefest of moments you have no weapon. You can't even use the power in front of allies and soon enough you can cleanse yourself of her. Unless you feel like being the bad guy.
  • Arthur the AI in The Journeyman Project 3 resides inside your translation chip for most of the game. He's represented by fairly cute cartoon with blinking eyes that lives in your HUD, offering up hints, obscure historical definitions and providing the backstory to people who haven't played the previous games and is responsible for some of the plot independent of you. When he does acquire a human-form hologram he appears as a man in a top hat.
    • In the second game, you found him in the first place on a derelict space station, and he downloaded a copy of himself onto a blank Biochip you happened to have. There, he appears as a static picture of a brain with eyes in a bell jar. Of course, you wouldn't know this since your future self mind-wiped you to prevent a reality distortion wave.
  • There is a similar thing in the game Temporal (make your time!) with TP. She resides within your Tertiary Processing Unit and appears on your HUD as well (as much as that game has a HUD).
  • The Legend of Zelda:
  • All the other characters from the Star Fox series. They'll talk to you to give you advice ("Do a barrel roll!"), inform you when they're in trouble, or yell at you when you shoot them or steal their kills.
    • Both this, and Snake's Codec above, were carried over to the Super Smash Bros.. games as Easter Eggs. There's even an amusing scene in which Slippy Toad contacts Snake!
  • In System Shock 2 the player is assisted by a Dr. Polito, who has baricaded herself in a room with computer and communication access, but had died before the beginning of the game and is instead used as a cover by SHODAN, who is imitating her voice pattern, which is a subversion of Rebecca Lansing's role in the original System Shock.
  • Hunnigan in Resident Evil 4. Unusually, she's pretty much completely useless. And when the baddie hacks into your Code — your radio frequency, he tells the player character about upcoming ambushes. No, Really.
    "You'll never escape my hedge maze, Meeester Scott Kennedy!"
  • Command & Conquer:
    • The series was probably the first to justify this trope as an actual plot element for an RTS game. Specifically, the Tiberium series introduced the Electronic Video Assistants, an expert system designed to monitor the status of all troops on the battlefield in real time instead of using a brigade of human officers to do the same significantly slower. It became especially noticeable in Tiberian Sun, in which the EVA installed onto the Kodiak is a fully sentient AI and no longer just spouting pre-recorded messages like its predecessor. Red Alert, since it was originally intended to be a prequel, gives the player an experimental EVA prototype but from Red Alert 2 onward, there is a Mission Control in the form of the Featureless Protagonist's female intelligence officer instead.
    • The only exception might be Yuri, who's personally commanding his forces. The "commander" is implied to be a split personality of his and therefore doesn't need this trope.
    • Command & Conquer: Renegade being an FPS instead of an RTS, you actually go down on the field and have commanding officers telling you where to go. In one cutscene, you get a glimpse of their workstation, and it looks exactly like the interface of the strategy games.
  • Terrans in StarCraft have AI "adjutants" responsible for distributing orders and collating intelligence.
  • Hendrix of Red Faction is one, although you see him in person on a few occasions.
  • Roll Caskett from Mega Man Legends 1 and 2.
  • Blackbird from Strife. One of the first such characters in a computer game and once referred to by PC Gamer as the sexiest thing to ever come out of your PC speakers.
  • Iji:
    • Dan. Subverted in that you do encounter him in the flesh at a few points, and at one point he's taken hostage and can be killed if you don't make plans to ensure otherwise.
    • Interestingly, later in the game a Komato Berserker may take up residence in the control room and acts as this AGAINST the player, which openly pisses Iji off.
  • In Mercenaries, Fiona Taylor, your mission support, serves as this. In the first one she's generally helpful, but get's so repetitive during the sequel it quickly gets into Annoying Video Game Helper territory.
  • The later Rainbow Six games usually have this, and they typically are pretty helpful. Except for the NSA Agent. He turns out to be The Mole anyways, so his bad info that almost gets you killed over and over again actually makes sense in context.
  • Eye of the Beholder 2 has Khelben as "Voice with a Crystal Ball" (this being a fantasy game) that pops up a few times to give unnecessary advice. Subverted in that one of the times he pops up, it's actually the disguised Big Bad who tells you that the only way to get past the next room is to let the monsters there kill you and let an "amulet of resurrection" bring you back to life. Given the fact that your previous communication was abruptly cut off by a magic barrier, it's not terribly convincing.
  • Tomas in Spyro: Shadow Legacy does this through telepathy.
  • In The Conduit, both Mr. Adams and Prometheus fulfill this role.
  • In the Sly Cooper series, almost every main and supporting character qualifies for this trope, though, It's usually Bentley.
  • BlazBlue: Iron Tager has one that goes by the name Kokonoe in his story.
  • Touhou Project pulls this off in Touhou Chireiden ~ Subterranean Animism, as the "options" in the game are effectively two-way radios to the youkai on the surface, who also have the ability to sense the world around the options. The protagonist is essentially sent into harm's way simply as a proxy for the youkai you choose, since the surface youkai are barred from going into the underground. The youkai partners tend to make statements about just how comfortable they are at home while the protagonist is risking her life.
  • Batman: Arkham Asylum
    • Like in the comics, Oracle serves this role to the player.
    • Early in the game, the Riddler hacks the channel they use, and he harasses Batman on it at intervals (usually when you solve one of his puzzles) for the rest of the game.
    • Inverted for the goons with the Joker talking over the speaker system. He alerts them when you take down one of the suicide-collar-wearing henchmen. He's otherwise about as helpful as you'd expect the Joker to be.
    Joker: Listen to me Batman, I want you to hurt these guys, they mean nothing to me! Do your worst! Hahahaha!
  • The Borderlands series:
    • The first game, Borderlands: The "Guardian Angel" is a definite portrayer of this trope.
    • Borderlands 2 has a rare example of the Big Bad being this, in that Handsome Jack often calls the Vault Hunters up just to annoy them with insults and taunts. The Guardian Angel once again functions in this role, and this time in a greater capacity.
    • Just about every NPC in the Borderlands games is constantly aware of who you are and what you're doing at all times. Quest-givers will almost always know where you are when their quest is active, when you've completed quest objectives, and will frequently update their quests by giving you new objectives or information mid-quest.
    Scooter: Hey, side question, is it weird when I notice the moment you pick something up? Did you know I can see you in the bathroom? Wait, was that weird? I meant it like a spying on you in the bathroom out of friendship thing.
  • In the first Penumbra, you're guided by Red, a miner who's been trapped underground for decades and has pretty much gone insane. After a while, he loses track of you and doesn't even know if you're still alive, but he's so lonely that he keeps broadcasting radio messages anyway. The second game replaces him with Clarence, the Tuurngait's personal representative inside your skull, who spends half his time trying to get you killed because he hates his existence, and the other half trying to keep you alive because he's scared to die. A scientist named Amabel Swanson also demonstrates this trope, using the facility's computer network.
  • Aliens vs. Predator 2
    • Multiple characters, from the Marine's campaign. Mostly Tomiko though.
    • Initially Tequila in Aliens vs. Predator (2010), but when she's incapacitated you get administrator Katya. Ironically, Tequila complains about Katya talking too much, completely forgetting the time when she refused to shut up.
  • Depict1 is based around a Voice with an Internet Connection that actively lies to you. Whatever it says, you must do the exact opposite to stay alive, no matter how much it pleads with you to trust it and how often it tells you you're going to get yourself killed.
  • MINERVA: Metastasis and its predecessor Someplace Else has the player being directed (as well as regularly reminded of their chances of survival) by an unseen character named Minerva-the Roman name for Athena. The titular voice makes reference to various mythological characters and stories, equating the character to Perseus. At first its clear that Minerva views the player as a mere pawn in her plans to undermine the Combine's control of humanity, but as the mission progresses she becomes more concerned with the player's well being.
  • At the start of MadWorld, Jack dons an earpiece that lets him contact his sponsor, Agent XIII. In his other ear, he has a CODEC that lets him speak to Amala, his contact with the Bureau of Justice. Partway through the game, he breaks XIII's earpiece, but XIII/Lord Gesser continues to give advice by hacking into the CODEC. At the finale, Jack punches out the CODEC as well, abandoning the Bureau.
  • In Anarchy Reigns, Amala returns to fulfill pretty much the same purpose as before.
  • EDI, the Normandy's resident artificial intelligence (who, surprisingly, is not out to kill Shepard) in Mass Effect 2.
    • She does enjoy seeing humans on their knees. That was a joke.
    • Before she came along, and to a limited extent afterwards, Ace Pilot Joker served as your eye in the sky and general coordinator.
    • Mass Effect 3's multiplayer mode features a nameless Alliance commander who gives you updates as your mission objectives change. He can be rather insistent.
  • Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones provides a rare, possibly unique, fantasy example. The Dark Prince, the manifestation of the Prince's darker side from the Sands of Time, occasionally gives the Prince tips on enemies and how to proceed - when he's not urging the Prince to give in to his more violent desires.
  • Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy uses telepathy as a Psychic Powers equivalent.
  • Overlord has Gnarl, your chief minion, who communicates with the Overlord through the Tower Heart.
  • In a rare villain version, Dr. Eggman becomes this in Sonic Adventure 2. During the Cannon's Core stage, he'll either tell you where the security door that you'll need to destroy (Tails), or your objective for a particular point. (Rouge, Knuckles, Sonic) During Eggman's segment, Tails fills in this role.
  • Bain in PAYDAY: The Heist serves this role and it is implied that he is the brains behind all the heist plans in the game. Bain tells you what you need to do for each objective and he also warns you of special enemy units being deployed or when an assault from the cops is going to begin.
    • Bain fills this role again in PAYDAY 2. On some missions, other contractorsnote  will share the role with him. After Bain is captured during the Reservoir Dogs heist, Locke takes over this role full-time.
    • Shade fills Bain's role in PAYDAY 3, as Bain had taken over the President's body at the end of PAYDAY 2's storyline.
  • Zombies, Run!: Since the game is nearly entirely audio-based, almost every speaking character winds up fulfilling this role, the few exceptions being the other Runners and the antagonists. Sometimes the 5K Trainer will have a character "go running" with you, but for the most part? Every character you hear will be in the communications compound, looking over scanners and cameras to tell you where the zombies are and keep you safe.
  • [REVIVE] has GOV, or Generic Omnipresent Voice, guide you through the testing grounds as a means of conducting his experiments with Life Syrup.
  • Chocolat Gelato of Solatorobo acts as a mission navigator. She stays put on her ship, but talks to Red everywhere via a transmitter.
  • In Firewatch, Henry communicates with his supervisor Delilah via a hand-held radio as he explores the park and investigates the strange goings-on.
  • In Undertale, Alphys plays this role for you in Hotland and the Core after she upgrades your cell phone. (It's revealed shortly before this that she has been monitoring your adventures constantly on video.) The phone not only transmits her timely (though not always helpful) advice and assistance, but also random updates about her anime watching experiences and social life or lack thereof.
  • Mass Effect: Andromeda: Ark Hyperion's shipboard AI SAM has a connection via quantum entanglement communicator to an implant in Ryder's brain, letting him experience whatever Ryder does and remotely hack computers through Ryder's omni-tool.
  • The Spectrum Retreat: Cooper assists you throughout the game through your phone, while she's sitting in front of the computer somewhere else googling all information you might need.
  • Ghostrunner has two characters who give their batch of informations to the player character. The first is the Architect, a Virtual Ghost that's downloaded itself into the titular Ghostrunner and who provides background on the Tower's construction and politics; the second is Zoe, the seeming Sole Survivor of the Climbers, a group that attempted to resist the Keymaster's tyranny, and explains the current situation.
  • Serena helps you out throughout The Persistence by radioing in information and interfacing with the ship to activate whatever mechanisms you need to manually restart the ship's systems.
  • Destiny and Destiny 2, also from Bungie, have fun with this one. Sometimes it seems like every character with a voice actor has open access to your comms, so your experience playing through missions is often less Voice With An Internet Connection and more like Conference Call With An Internet Connection as various people all weigh in with their responses and opinions. This is because Destiny doesn't have much of a cutscene budget, so characterization has to be done through dialogue.
  • Total Chaos: Throughout the game, you're contacted by a voice over your radio who tells you what to do at certain points and is insistent that you get to the mines to stop the monsters on the island. You never get to see him and his only direct action with you was to block off a door to prevent some monsters from overwhelming you. When you reach the end of the game, it gets revealed that the whole game is a Mental Story and that the voice is a part of Tyler's subconsious that was likely created off the misery he felt from getting treatment for his lung cancer but discovered that the community of Fort Oasis that he's grown attached to doesn't exist anymore.
  • Midnight Fight Express: Babyface is assisted by a flying drone introducing itself as "Droney," explaining that they are locked in a room in the Big Bad's building and is assisting the player remotely. This trope is later subverted — it's revealed that the real Droney is dead and consciousness was uploaded into the drone with fake memories.
  • Fate/Grand Order has Dr. Roman play this role when you're out on a mission. Thanks to some Magitek he can stay in touch with the team across time and space, monitoring their activities and giving information about the time period they're visiting and any Servants they encounter.

    Web Animation 
  • The A.I.s act as this to their Freelancer partners in seasons 9-13 of Red vs. Blue.

    Web Comics 
  • The Pet Professional's unseen assistant/dispatcher is actually named Voice.
  • Wrench in Antihero for Hire is another female example, but occasionally becomes a little more involved in her role as Queen of All Hackers.
  • Multiple in Homestuck, although somewhat subverted in that all of the Voices later appear in the flesh. At first, Rose was this for John, although later (particularly after Rose entered the Medium) the trolls started taking over this role more.
    • Also, Doc Scratch was this to Rose, giving her information on how the reality-controlling game she and her friends are playing could be broken, despite being in another universe than her. Never precisely lies, but then he doesn't consider Exact Words or lies of omission as lies.
  • Fides in Shadowgirls.
  • In Agents of the Realm, as Jade can't cross over to our world, she communicates with the Agents through a small robot called LBB, doubling as Mission Control.
  • Subverted in Sluggy Freelance strips where Torg infiltrates something Mission: Impossible-style, listens to somebody encouraging him over the radio, then explains to Bun-Bun that this is just a tape record he listens for encouragement.
  • In Godslave this seems to be how Heru manages his agents, talking to them through their neck-eyes.
  • Tuesday Titans: A Titan's human partner is this via the pair's Psychic Link. While the Titan does the fieldwork that only a Kaiju with military training can do, the human can help her strategize, feed her tactical information, navigate, warn her of threats, and provide support with other military assets, i.e. artillery strikes. Assuming that the pair aren't a newborn and a civilian, of course.
  • Umway guides Emily through the ruined part of Fuungahi in Astray3, except he uses telepathy.

    Web Original 
  • Worm: Dragon is widely considered the most powerful Tinker on the planet. She also happens to be an AI, and while she can move from vessel to vessel she is understandably hesitant to reveal her true nature to anyone thus she suffers from extreme agoraphobia and communicates entirely as disembodied, computer generated voice. Oh, and as a constantly changing series of incredibly advanced Mechs.

    Western Animation 
  • Bruce Wayne in Batman Beyond, who continued to be Batman into old age vicariously through Terry McGuinness. It's even lampshaded in the first episode featuring the elderly Barbara Gordon, who wants the new Batman to back off from a case, only to turn to Bruce and wonder if she should be talking to the older Batman.
  • Carmen Sandiego (2019): Player serves as this for Carmen Sandiego in this series, providing navigational and hacking help remotely from his home in Niagara Falls while she traverses the world for caper after caper.
  • Jéremie Belpois from Code Lyoko, who provides the page image. He talks through and guides the other lyoko warriors on their missions to prevent XANA's latest schemes. He has to, since he cannot handle going onto Lyoko himself.
  • Wade in Kim Possible in the early seasons. However, in later seasons he was shown to be a more active field member.
  • In Roswell Conspiracies: Aliens, Myths and Legends, Nick frequently calls his friend Cracker on his cell phone, who uses his computer skills to get Nick information he needs for his job as a bounty hunter. In one episode Nick goes missing and Sh'lainn teams up with Cracker to find him.
  • 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.
  • Gimpy was this for Nitz and co. in Undergrads after he went off to Tekerson Tech, though he also had video feed.
  • Young Justice - Revival Series: Oracle acts as Nightwing's and, by extension, the Outsiders' sitrep, later shown to perform this function for Batman's group as well.

    Real Life 
  • A somewhat amusing example in the case of the 21st-century Afghanistan campaign was "Widow Six Seven", a forward air controller in Helmand Province who would at times flirt in a British accent with female pilots... only to be later revealed as Prince Harry of Wales, third in line to the British throne.
  • Used by televangelist/faith healer Peter Popoff for the personal information about his congregation he was supposed to be getting from God, as exposed by James Randi.
  • The Siri application for the iPhone.
  • As seen in Apollo 13, the CAPCOM (Capsule/Spacecraft Communicator) is this for the US space program. Normally, this station is the only one that can directly send a transmission to the crew, to avoid a dozen different system controllers giving instructions simultaneously. CAPCOM is normally a fellow astronaut, as NASA felt they would best convey what was going on in Mission Control in a way the astronauts would understand.
  • Team radio in autosports, where the engineers provide information and software fixes over radio communication. Notable in Formula One, where some messages are broadcast.

 
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Angel

Regularly communicates with both sets of Vault Hunters over the ECHO network, and in the second game, is "networked into everything" on Pandora.

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