Daisy: So… what, you’re [Basira's] boss now? Is that supposed to stop me?
Elias: Yes. (...) Basira is now tied to the Institute. All of you are, like fingers on a hand. And I am the beating heart of it. Should I, or the Institute, be destroyed, you will all, unfortunately, follow suit. And it would not be a pleasant death.
Daisy: Bullshit!
Elias: Then shoot me. Just squeeze the trigger, and watch the only person you care about die screaming. Your last connection to humanity. Do it.
—The Magnus Archives, "Nothing Beside Remains"
"As most of you know, Site-01 is a green zone, we house no anomalies and instead focus on research, data collection, and administration. We also house a machine called SCUTTLE that is our last resort in the event of an incursion by either hostile forces or an unforeseen anomaly. SCUTTLE is what's known as a "dead man's switch," whereby if your Site doesn't hear from SCUTTLE (and thus Site-01) for a long period of time, that Site's on-site nuclear warhead is detonated, which is provisioned to be powerful enough to vaporize your particular site. You might know where I'm going with this. SCUTTLE is broken."
—Maria Jones, "Scuttle
", SCP Foundation
", SCP FoundationDiggle: He probably put in a safeguard. Tampering with it will set off a deadman's switch.
Felicity: That's a really depressing term. [beat] And a little bit sexist.
Felicity: That's a really depressing term. [beat] And a little bit sexist.
— Arrow, "Blast Radius"
"You're a piece of work, Dredd. But so am I. You think I didn't know I'd get busted some day? Goes with the territory. This entire level is rigged with enough high explosives to take out the top fifty stories. If they go, the rest go too. Like the jewelry? It's a transmitter, synced to my heartbeat. My heart stops, the building blows, and everyone in it... ash. You got no way out, Judge. Put your gun down."
—Ma-Ma, Dredd
"And if your body expires, oh, what will you become?! A hurricane?! An earthquake?! I wonder..."
Col. Conley: Sir, you better get on the headset.
Gen. Beringer: (puts on headset) Yeah?
McKittrick: General, the machine has locked us out. It's sending random numbers to the silos.
Beringer: Just unplug the goddamn thing! Jesus Christ!
McKittrick: That won't work, General. (puts down headset and walks to Beringer) It would interpret a shutdown as the destruction of NORAD. The computers in the silos would carry out their last instructions. They'd launch.
Beringer: (puts down headset) Can't we disarm the missiles?
Healy: Over a thousand of them? There's no time! At this rate, it'll hit the launch codes in 5.3 minutes.
Beringer: Mr. McKittrick? After very careful consideration, sir, I have come to the conclusion that your new defense system sucks.
McKittrick: (softly) I don't have to take that, you pig-eyed sack of shit.
Beringer: (chuckling) Oh, I was hoping for something a little better than that from a man of your education.
Conley: (holding phone) General, it's the president.
McKittrick: What do you... What are you gonna tell him?
Beringer: That I'm ordering our bombers back to fail-safe. We might have to go through this thing after all.
— WarGames
