Basic Trope: A vehicle fired at other ships to board them.
- Straight: The USS Troperia loads a squad of Space Marines into a missile and fires them at the ISS Wikipedia.
- Exaggerated:
- The Troperia loads an entire regiment of Space Marines into a missile, armored vehicles and all, and fires them at the Wikipedia.
- Same as the above, but with an entire barrage of boarding missiles!
- A boarding pod is shot at another, smaller boarding pod.
- The Troperia itself rams the Wikipedia and the Space Marines cross to the other ship on foot, having in effect used their own ship as one big boarding pod.
- Downplayed: A single small pod with a single occupant is used to accept the surrender of the Wikipedia.
- Justified: The Wikipedia has a Teleport Interdiction field in place so the Troperia can't use its transporters to simply beam Space Marines aboard, and she's still maneuvering and firing so closing to docking distance is risky. On the other hand, their shields are down, their Space Fighters are mostly destroyed, and their point-defense guns aren't working properly.
- Inverted: See Escape Pod.
- Subverted: The Wikipedia misidentifies normal missiles as boarding pods. The resulting barrage heavily damages the ship.
- Double Subverted: Then it turns out there were pods interspersed among the missiles and the Troperia's Space Marines get the drop on the surviving defenders.
- Parodied: The Troperia uses boarding pods for everything, even when docked with friendly ships.
- Zig Zagged:
- Some of the barrage of boarding pods fired at the Wikipedia are loaded with explosives instead of troops.
- There's a mutiny aboard the Troperia: some of pods are escaping marines, some are deliberate invaders and some of them have been deliberately placed on the pods to get rid of them, not to mention the pods that were launched by accident...
- Averted: The prospect of using boarding pods is not brought up. The Troperia uses a different method to board the Wikipedia, or does not attempt to board in the first place.
- Enforced: The writing team plays a lot of Battlefleet Gothic and one of them won a game as the orks by boarding with pods, which gave them the idea to include it in the show.
- Lampshaded: "Hey, they're putting men in their missiles! That's cheating!"
- Invoked:
- The captain of the Troperia demands these be added to their ship in order to stop the Space Marines loading themselves into cannons and launching themselves at the enemy.
- A Military Maverick gets into an Escape Pod and launches it at the enemy ship in order to improvise one of these.
- Exploited:
- The Mole aboard the Troparia ship takes the opportunity to start killing off the crew after the pods are launched, as with the Space Marines gone there's no-one to stop him.
- The Captain baits the Big Bad into a boarding pod to eject him into space.
- Defied:2nd Lt. Bob Roberts: Wait a minute, aren't we headed to the missile battery? That's where the boarding pods are.
SSgt. Alice Shepard: Skipper says the plan changed. Their point defense guns would take us apart; we're heading for the teleporter room.- Alternatively, the Wikipedia's captain reads on the sensors that the Troperia is preparing to launch boarding pods, decides he knows when to fold 'em, and makes a Hyperspeed Escape.
- Discussed:Capt. Peter Chase: The new Trope Co. boarding pods we got on our last resupply will be useful for getting the Wikipedian intelligence Command wants.
- Conversed: "Cool! They're using boarding pods like they do in Terran Conflict!"
- Deconstructed: The boarding pods are fragile and easily destroyed by hostile fighters and point defense fire, costing the lives of many Space Marines.
- Reconstructed: But enough get through that the survivors are able to capture the Wikipedia after an intense firefight.
- They fill the pods with kill-droids instead. The boarding pods are not only more ethical, but are also more efficient as they no-longer need cumbersome life support systems.
- Played For Laughs: The Intimidating Revenue Service uses boarding pods to collect their tax returns.
- Played For Drama: The use of boarding pods is a sign of a We Have Reserves mentality on the part of the Troperia's captain: fire enough pods and some will get through. Doesn't do the Space Marines themselves much good, though, and lots of named marines die in a hail of point defense fire from the Wikipedia.
Our Space Marines are ready to attack the main page. Locking onto Boarding Pod.
