Captain Tagon: Welcome to Andromeda. Petey wanted to send a full fleet on this mission, but for now it's just us.
Captain Andreyasn: "Us," meaning...?
Captain Tagon: This ship. This crew. Us.
Captain Andreyasn: "Us," meaning...?
Captain Tagon: This ship. This crew. Us.
When on a dangerous assignment, The Team is hoping for backup. Maybe they were promised support from the start, maybe they're calling about an emergency, or maybe circumstances have changed. No matter what, they think they can get help—but instead, they get nothing.
If they're lucky, they just need to do something to let the cavalry arrive. Disable the Anti-Air guns, remove the Immortality Inducer, or even find legal evidence so that the cops can get involved. More likely, they'll have to finish everything themselves.
Outside of the military, common situations include stranded survivors. Sometimes, the characters could call for help but are prevented by a communications problem, such as Cut Phone Lines, Cell Phones Are Useless, or The Radio Dies First.
The character may realize they've been caught in a Uriah Gambit.
See also The Cavalry Arrives Late.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Ayakashi Triangle: Despite the global importance of events in Omiko City, Matoi explains the Exorcist Ninja Association can't send any help because they're busy with increased jinyo activity in Tokyo.
- Chainsaw Man: During the Eternity arc, whether or not Aki was right about the Eternity Devil freezing time, no one comes after them after several days pass from their perspective.
- Highschool of the Dead: When the protagonists get to a shopping mall, they find patrol officer Asami Nakaoka, who tells them that her superior officer had left the mall in order to go find help for the survivors holed up there. Unfortunately, the zombies got to her first, as her zombified self is seen shambling around with the rest of them. Because of this, all the survivors have to get out of there themselves, with no help of any kind coming to save them.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: In Stardust Crusaders, while the midst of his fight with Vanilla Ice, Polnareff is stuck in the room's center as Ice's Cream is approaching him. Polnareff considers the possibility of the others coming to his rescue, however, as he sees that he has only moments remaining before getting killed, he realizes they won't make it in time and has to deal with it himself.
Comic Books
- In the French comic 666, Father Carmody is visiting a top-secret weapons testing facility when it comes under attack by a demonic horde. Despite the call for help being sent out, reinforcements come only after the demons are pushed back, but it's clear they didn't waste any time, tipping off Carmody that there's a mole somewhere who deliberately delayed the order. That mole being the President of the United States, who's actually a demon in human form.
Film - Animation
- The Super Mario Bros. Movie: Bowser's army counter-ambushes the Kong Army on the Rainbow Road, and a section of it ends up being destroyed, leaving everyone except Peach, Toad, Mario, and Donkey Kong stuck on the wrong side of the gap (and presumably unable to reach the Mushroom Kingdom in time to help).
Film - Live Action
- 28 Years Later. Jamie is told by the community elders that, once he and Spike leave Holy Island, nobody will follow them across the causeway, leaving them on their own. They need to be within eyesight of the watchtower for anyone else to intervene. It's a policy they've been forced to adopt after several disastrous rescue expeditions. On a larger scale, Britain (and Ireland) has been left to fend for itself, with other countries patrolling the surrounding sea to make sure nobody leaves. Erik, a Swedish marine whose crew was shipwrecked during one such patrol, confirms that any NATO quarantine soldiers who end up stranded in Britain have no hope of rescue.
- Aliens: After the Colonial Marines have their first battle with the xenomorphs, the hope of rescue is raised and immediately dashed.
Ripley: How long after we're declared overdue can we expect a rescue?
Hicks: Seventeen days.
Hudson: Seventeen days? Hey, man, I don't wanna rain on your parade, but we're not gonna last seventeen hours! - The Dark Knight Rises: After Bane has effectively taken over Gotham, a news report from the government ensures the citizens to stay in control, which Blake and Gordon both realize it just means nobody is coming to help.
- Dawn of the Dead (2004): The survivors of the Zombie Apocalypse take shelter in a mall and hold out in hope of rescue. This hope begins to fade after a helicopter spotted overhead completely ignores them, and then the rest of the world falls completely silent. At that point, as far as they're aware, they're the last living people on Earth.
- Epic Movie: Played for Laughs when the four heroes believe they have an entire army against the Queen before the battle. The next day has them entirely on their own since everyone in the army was too tired from the party they had earlier.
- In Predator (1987), Dutch is told by Dillon only when they are already in the air that they have no one backing them up in their rescue operation. This is just one of the many signs that there's something wrong here.
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi: The Resistance, now down to a couple dozen soldiers and some barely-functioning attack vehicles and weaponry, is holed up on the salt-covered planet of Crait with the First Order bearing down on them. They are desperately hoping that the distress signal they’ve sent throughout the galaxy will bring allies to save them. To their horror, they realize no one is coming and this is likely to be their Last Stand. This ends up being a Double Subversion, as Luke Skywalker’s astral projection, despite being unable to aid in combat directly, buys them the time they need to escape to fight another day.
- In The Rock, General Hummel's troops are stranded in Iraq during the Gulf War. They succeeded in their mission but for reasons they cannot be extracted no matter how much he pleaded. This leads him to have a Face–Heel Turn.
"They're not coming for us are they, Sir?"
Literature
- Animorphs: For most of the series, the Animorphs are waging a guerilla war against the Yeerks to buy time until the Andalites arrive. Whenever they get in touch with the Andalites, they talk to one or two who're sympathetic but overall Earth is a low priority, and it will be a few years before the Andalite fleet comes as they're focusing on Yeerk activity on entirely different planets. As the series progresses, the benevolence of the Andalite species comes more and more into question.
- In fact, when they do turn their attention to Earth, the Andalites are alarmed by the degree of Yeerk presence and plan to kill everyone just to get all the Yeerks, too. So the final threat the Animorphs have to face, immediately after getting the Yeerks to stand down, actually is the Andalite fleet - fortunately thanks to freeing Alloran, they have someone who knows how to get them to talk first. Unfortunately their leader doesn't believe Alloran's not still infested. Marco faux-stupidly asks if the Andalite homeworld is watching, and Alloran's quick enough on the uptake to roll with it. Jake then gives a graceful speech "thanking" the Andalites for their help, with Marco mentally translating; part of the speech is functionally saying that if the fleet commits genocide after being addressed as friends and allies, the more peace-loving civilians at home won't stand for it.
- August 1914: This happens a lot in the latter stages of the Battle of Tannenberg, as Second Army falls apart, mainly due to the sheer cowardice of most of the Russian generals. Late in the story, tens of thousands of Russian soldiers are trapped in a German encirclement. General Nechvolodov, one of the few competent Russian generals, enters the outskirts of Willenberg. There are hardly any Germans in his way and all he needs is some support from divisional headquarters to push on another mile or so, open up a link to the Russians inside the encirclement, and allow thousands to escape. But instead he gets a telegram from his gutless commanders telling him to withdraw.
- In Les Misérables, the student revolutionaries know they can't prevail by themselves, but are counting on their actions inspiring others to join the fight. As the siege on their barricade drags on, it becomes increasingly apparent that they're on their own. They refuse to surrender, and are eventually overwhelmed. In the Les Misérables (2012) movie, they are banging on the doors of the civilians begging to be let in but the doors stay closed.
- The Lord of the Rings: A factor that adds despair to the defence of Minas Tirith is when the heads of the dispatch riders sent to beg help from Rohan are among those catapulted back into the city: the messengers were intercepted and killed and therefore did not - apparently - carry the message to King Theoden. note
- Subverted in The Martian. Marooned astronaut Mark Watney has every reason to think this trope is in effect, as his colleagues believe him to be dead and the outpost's radio dish is under a foot of sand somewhere within a radius of several kilometres, and the first act of the story is concerned with finding some way to call for help. Unbeknown to him, however, Mission Control sent a survey satellite to find out what state the outpost was in a few days after the accident and immediately realised what had happened.
- The Illustrated Star Wars Universe: In the Dagobah chapter, Halka Four-Den's survey team was deposited on the planet by drop-ship and told to conduct as much research as possible until the Republic sent a shop to retrieve them, with the promise that a rescue ship would be ready if an emergency broadcast was sent. Unfortunately, Halka Four-Den had the rotten luck of setting out on this mission at the exact time the Republic's corruption started spiraling out of control, so her mission was completely forgotten about in the Vast Bureaucracy and her emergency broadcast went unanswered - leaving Halka and her surviving team-members struggling to contend with the increasingly aggressive swamp while they try to reach literally anyone for help.
Live-Action TV
- An episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, The Tale Of The Crimson Clown, has an obnoxious Bratty Half-Pint being haunted by the titular Monster Clown for stealing the money his brother intended to use for their mother's birthday to buy a video game for himself. Eventually he finds himself cornered in a nightmare realm by the clown, where it answers his pleas for help with "Nobody will help you Sam! Nobody wants to! It's not until he swears to be better and begs for a second chance that it lets him go.
- Firefly: In the prologue, Mal has a newly-minted lieutenant call for help, and they seemingly arrive. He soon realizes that the descending ships are actually the enemy, and his high command has surrendered.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: The end of episode 7 of Season 2 is a dark reversal of Gandalf's arrival at Helm's Deep in The Two Towers. Elrond expects the Dwarven army to arrive in Eregion only to learn from a wounded envoy prince Durin changed his mind last minute. He feels extremely betrayed by his friend. The situation is subverted next minute, the Dwarves make their appearance in the end last minute, just not the entire army of Khazad-dûm.
- The Witcher (2019): In the first episode, Queen Calanthe asks where their ships from Skellige are. She is informed that a storm delayed them, and they're going to be far too late to help with the battle they're about to lose. In a later episode, it's revealed that Nilfgaard's head mage summoned the storm on purpose, and the fleet was destroyed.
Video Games
- In the Age of Empires II Joan of Arc campaign, she expects to get reinforcements during the siege of Paris. Only a handful of footmen arrive so she is no stronger than she was at the start.
- Command & Conquer:
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3: The final Allied mission against the Empire involves weathering Imperial assaults while waiting for the Soviet navy to arrive. The Soviets keep sending messages that they're on the way, but once the timer runs out say they can't come after all. Allied High Command is only half-surprised at the betrayal, as the next mission would soon reveal that the Soviets deliberately left the Allies at the Empire's mercy while they secretly amass an invasion force in Cuba.
- Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun: A villainous example in the GDI campaign, when General Vega's base is being stormed by GDI forces and he pleads with Kane for reinforcements. Kane instead has both excommunicated him from the Brotherhood and ordered a nuclear missile strike on Vega's base to show his displeasure.
- In Dragon Age: Origins the Gray Warden forces and King Cailan put themselves in as bait to lure in the darkspawn horde so that the rest of the army can flank them and win the battle. However, the battle continues and the cavalry never arrive. The commander of the Grey Wardens is mortally wounded and one of the few left to see that the signal fire for the reinforcements to come has finally been lit... but at this point it's too late and the cavalry decide not to waste their forces trying to rescue men who are already dead. The king, all the Grey Wardens and almost every soldier left behind are killed.
- EarthBound: Around the start of the final fight against Giygas, Porky mocks the heroes by stating they're the only ones against the ultimate evil, daring them to cry out for anyone who can help, but have to face Giygas on their own.
- Far Cry 5: The memorable opening scene has the main antagonist utter a similar phrase.
Joseph Seed: No one is coming to save you.
- In the Goddess of Victory: NIKKE story, "Hi-Tech Toy", The Matis squad is sent by their boss, the CEO of Missilis, Syuen, to capture a rampaging Rapture. One of the surviving MP units asks them to call for backup, even taking their communications and calling Syuen. The grunt learns the hard way that Syuen won't lift a finger for even her most elite unit, never mind a rank and file soldier.
- In Grand Theft Auto IV, Niko works with the enigmatic Contact in exchange for locating Darko. Once Darko is found, The Contact reveals that he had been protecting Niko so long as he was useful. Now that he has Darko, that protection is lifted.
- In Ground Control II: Operation Exodus, the traitorous General Warhurst allies with the Terran Empire but they abandon him when their alliance is found out. His forces fight alone in the penultimate level.
- MapleStory: The backstory for the Resistance's grudge against the Cygnus Knights is that the two groups agreed to a big counter-offensive to take back Edelstein from the Black Wings, but they never showed up. In reality, the Black Wings sent one of their enforcers to attack Ereve to distract the Cygnus Knights long enough to make sure that they DIDN'T came. Neinheart sent a lone Cygnus Knight on a rescue mission to the Verne Mine beforehand and learned of their plot, but they were unable to return in time to help out the Resistance, who were forced back into hiding after their botched raid. Further sabotage by the Black Wings in cutting off their communication networks led to the formation of their grudge against the Cygnus Knights.
- Chong Vong from MechCommander 2 is a freelance mercenary working for House Liao. Once he begins to lose in the final Steiner level, he calls for Liao backup but they refuse and act like they don't know him.
- Mental Omega: Twice over in Hamartia, the final Allied Act 2 mission:
- Once you've returned to the greater battlefield from the dungeon crawl phase and see the absolutely dire straits you're already in, you're quickly informed it's even worse than that: now that all the Mental Dynamos are down, the communications interference has cleared up...so you now know that all the Antarctic bases the Allies previously established have been destroyed by Epsilon's Super-Soldier and armies. It's just you, the Southern Cross (who've lost all but three of their bases, including their former primary base) and Boomerang (who've lost two bases) Regiments against them and their inbound reinforcements.
Allied EVA: "Epsilon reinforcements are closing in on us. Yuri's supersoldiers have crushed our Antarctic outposts, we're alone."- You're given access to reinforcements from the Paradox Engine's Pocket Dimension to quickly build your army against Epsilon's counterattack. Even if you deploy a lot of them at once, you simply need to wait a while as more are prepared...until the final phase, which involves a desperate push against Epsilon with everything the Allies have left. Here, you only get 60 uses out of the Chrono reinforcements until there's no one left to send.
Allied EVA: "The last unit has just left the Pocket Dimension. That's it for our troops." - In Metal Gear Solid, when Snake has been captured and is about to face some Cold-Blooded Torture, he gets this as a threat from Revolver Ocelot:
Ocelot: You're a tough guy, Snake. But I got some bad news for you. You're no POW. You're a hostage. There's no Geneva Convention. No one is coming to save you. Startin' to feel a little scared? Good... you should be.
- In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, guards will call in for reinforcements if they spot you and get into a firefight with you, as is typical in the series. Occasionally — typically if you've managed to gun down several enemies, the guards' requests for backup will be met with their CO informing them that they cannot spare any more manpower, and that they are on their own.
- Policenauts: Prior to final confrontation with the Big Bad, Meryl informs Jonathan that nobody from the police is coming to assist them as they believe they're unable to stand against the BCPD, leaving Jonathan to face the heavily-armed soldiers head-on by himself.
- Quake IV: During the mission to destroy the Tetranode, a couple of soldiers talk about how deep in enemy territory they are, and when Private Strauss asks if it means reinforcements will take several minutes to arrive, Morris clarifies that it means the will get no backup at all. It goes without saying that everything eventually goes pear-shaped.
- Shuten Order: In the Ministry of Science route, the Ministry of Security is unable to send a response to the terror attack at Ryugu due to them dealing with a crisis of their own; even if they could, the only elevator leading to the underground lab is destroyed, so only Rei and Ku, who were underground to begin with, are able to help Teko fight back.
- StarCraft I:
- In "New Gettysburg", Kerrigan helps the Zerg destroy planet Tarsonis but her requests for evacuation is answered with Mengsk coldly ordering the fleet to move without her.
- In the final Protoss level, Tassadar's name is cleared and the Enclave recognizes that only through an alliance with the Dark Templar can they hope to defeat the Zerg. But the Enclave still does not send reinforcements.
- In Undertale, a big recurring theme is characters crying out for help only to be met with the same message...
"...but nobody came."
- XCOM: Enemy Unknown: One achievement is called "Ain't No Cavalry Comin'". You get it for having at least one soldier participate in every single combat engagement against the aliens for the entire campaign. In other words, those who started the fight against the aliens have to finish it, without anyone relieving them.
Web Comics
- Schlock Mercenary: In the final book, Petey sends the Toughs to Andromeda in one small ship to disable the weapon that is preventing him from sending more. Captain Andreyasn points out (after he is already stranded in Andromeda with everyone else) that it is extremely unlikely that they can kill a planet-sized superweapon with one little ship.
Captain Andreyasn: So... we're headed into a fleet-sized fight, but we don't get a fleet to help us unless we win.
Captain Tagon: When you say it that way you make it sound impossible.
Captain Andreyasn: You're the one making it sound impossible. I'm just making sure I heard you correctly.
Western Animation
- In Star Wars Rebels Season Four, Rebel high command makes it very clear to Ezra and the crew of the 'Ghost' that if they return to Lothal to fight the Imperial occupation there, they're going to be on their own. It takes an impassioned speech from Hera to get them to agree to one sortie on the TIE defender factories and after that fails there are no repeat attempts.
- Transformers: EarthSpark: In "Age of Evolution - Part 2", after sending the arachnamechs after Dot, Mandroid tells Megatron there's nobody left to save him. Then it immediately cuts to Optimus, Bee, and the Maltos racing to find them.
Real Life
- The German Army trapped in Stalingrad in 1942-1943 had to face up to the Red Army's offensives around them which not only cut them off from the main German front line, but drove that front line back so far that there was no realistic chance of being relieved. In addition to the failure of the promises of Hermann Göring to resupply them by the air, the defending Germans also had to face Adolf Hitler's flat refusal to let them attempt to pull out and fight a retreat, as well as the order to stand fast and fight to the last man and the last bullet.