Discussion Why do Villains/Corps/Secret Organization never think to moniter their Goons/employees Life signs?

Ok, think about it, what is one of the biggest troupes that almost every Action/Adventure story is going to have. It has to be the scene were the MC/group has to sneak into the Villains/Corps/Secret Organization's HQ and either steal something important or take someone important out.

Something I've always wondered about this though; If you're one of these Villains/Corps/Secret Organizations, and you have something SOOOOO Important in your Hidden Base/HQ/etc etc, that if it falls into the MC's hands, you're screw, then why aren't you constantly monitoring any and everyone who walks through those doors.

You don't even need 50 guys in a room full of monitors spying on everyone. All that you need is to make sure that everyone who is suppose to be there, is wearing some kind of Biometrics monitor (magic, science, or otherwise).

That way, if some random Goon DOES get into a fight, or gets knocked out, the facility can go into immediate lockdown.

It seems like a very simple and easy way to counter a pretty glaring loophole in your defenses. The only way then that the MCs will ever get in, is if they remain totally undetected by any living person.

 

you read peter's Evil overlord list too much

and the best way solve that problem is to kill the important guy or destroy the important thing.

 

I would assume it's probably because most authors just write the story generically, so all other upcoming authors follow them by writing the evil organization as really generic. Though another possible reason may be because the MC is so overpowered with too much plot armor that there really is no point to writing the specifics because the MC is just that overpowered that it wouldn't even matter to add this specific detail.

 

Soul lantern and life plate from wuxia and stuffs?

 

same guilty of why on popcorn xuanhuan young master keep saying you courting death!
cuz it convenient to move plot with lil stuff~
talkless about war strategy which may make this cat bite it own tail~
don't mind da small detail~

 

Perhaps it’s too expensive to outfit every member with a biometric device? I mean, aren’t regular companies notorious for trying to cut corners where they can? Wouldn’t villain organizations be even more so? Besides, don’t villains usually not care about the replaceable cannon fodder? (That’s not how I actually think, just trying to think like a villain.)

 

Its not really about "caring about the cannon fodder" though, Its more like using them as cheap security measure.
Take the Death Star for example. As soon as the first Storm Trooper went down, that entire sector should have been sealed shut, with Blast Doors every few meters.
As for the expense, that might be an issue in some places, but if they have a secret base, I doubt it.
Even now these days, a simple wrist mounted heartbeat monitor is pretty cheap

 

You're so naive it's almost cute.
Actually the problem isn't 'how' they've stollen the thing but the way in which the story goes.
Any author can push as many reasons for such things as he wants.
Smth like 'too costly', 'unreliable', not everybody wants to be monitored so they rebel etc. And even if the said system is here it wouldn't stop the author from forcing this plotline. Protagonist will ignore or overcome all the obstacles.
He disrupted the alarm, hijacked the signal, infiltrated the surveillance center first, acted like a ninja and avoided everyone, he can be too strong or have some sort of cheat / mysterious ability.
All in all, it's not this moment of the novel that is at fault but its author or its overall quality is too low.

 

Xianxia antagonists should honestly take note of this too. But then again, we wouldn't have all these cultivation stories if they didn't have the IQ of a goldfish.

1. My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.
2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
3. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.
4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.
6. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.
7. When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."
8. After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks' time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.
9. I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled "Danger: Do Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not Push" will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.
10. I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum — a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.
11. I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.
12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
13. All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied into them, not Left for Dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.
14. The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.
15. I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 1:17 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.
16. I will never utter the sentence "But before I kill you, there's just one thing I want to know."
17. When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.
18. I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.
19. I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father.
20. Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.
21. I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legions of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman footsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.
22. No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.
23. I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way — even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless — my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.
24. I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line "No, This Cannot Be!! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)
25. No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot.
26. No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber.
27. I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.
28. My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.
29. I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.
30. All bumbling conjurers, clumsy squires, no-talent bards, and cowardly thieves in the land will be preemptively put to death. My foes will surely give up and abandon their quest if they have no source of comic relief.
31. All naive, busty tavern wenches in my realm will be replaced with surly, world-weary waitresses who will provide no unexpected reinforcement and/or romantic subplot for the hero or his sidekick.
32. I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by.
33. I won't require high-ranking female members of my organization to wear a stainless-steel bustier. Morale is better with a more casual dress-code. Similarly, outfits made entirely from black leather will be reserved for formal occasions.
34. I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.
35. I will not grow a goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X.
36. I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell. If they are important prisoners, I will keep the only key to the cell door on my person instead of handing out copies to every bottom-rung guard in the prison.
37. If my trusted lieutenant tells me my Legions of Terror are losing a battle, I will believe him. After all, he's my trusted lieutenant.
38. If an enemy I have just killed has a younger sibling or offspring anywhere, I will find them and have them killed immediately, instead of waiting for them to grow up harboring feelings of vengeance towards me in my old age.
39. If I absolutely must ride into battle, I will certainly not ride at the forefront of my Legions of Terror, nor will I seek out my opposite number among his army.
40. I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.
41. Once my power is secure, I will destroy all those pesky time-travel devices.
42. When I capture the hero, I will make sure I also get his dog, monkey, ferret, or whatever sickeningly cute little animal capable of untying ropes and filching keys happens to follow him around.
43. I will maintain a healthy amount of skepticism when I capture the beautiful rebel and she claims she is attracted to my power and good looks and will gladly betray her companions if I just let her in on my plans.
44. I will only employ bounty hunters who work for money. Those who work for the pleasure of the hunt tend to do dumb things like even the odds to give the other guy a sporting chance.
45. I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him, say "And here is the price for failure," then suddenly turn and kill some random underling.
46. If an advisor says to me "My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?", I will reply "This," and kill the advisor.
47. If I learn that a callow youth has begun a quest to destroy me, I will slay him while he is still a callow youth instead of waiting for him to mature.
48. I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge.
49. If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I will not send all my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them out to seize something else and quietly put a Want-Ad in the local paper.
50. My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh powerbooks.
51. If one of my dungeon guards begins expressing concern over the conditions in the beautiful princess' cell, I will immediately transfer him to a less people-oriented position.
52. I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.
53. If the beautiful princess that I capture says "I'll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, NEVER!!!", I will say "Oh well" and kill her.
54. I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being then attempt to double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary.
55. The deformed mutants and odd-ball psychotics will have their place in my Legions of Terror. However before I send them out on important covert missions that require tact and subtlety, I will first see if there is anyone else equally qualified who would attract less attention.
56. My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.
57. Before employing any captured artifacts or machinery, I will carefully read the owner's manual.
58. If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.
59. I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.
60. My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: this also applies to passwords.
61. If my advisors ask "Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?", I will not proceed unless I have a response that satisfies them.
62. I will design fortress hallways with no alcoves or protruding structural supports which intruders could use for cover in a firefight.
63. Bulk trash will be disposed of in incinerators, not compactors. And they will be kept hot, with none of that nonsense about flames going through accessible tunnels at predictable intervals.
64. I will see a competent psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be a disadvantage.
65. If I must have computer systems with publicly available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.
66. My security keypad will actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints then subsequently tries to enter by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system.
67. No matter how many shorts we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.
68. I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they'd better save my life again.
69. All midwives will be banned from the realm. All babies will be delivered at state-approved hospitals. Orphans will be placed in foster-homes, not abandoned in the woods to be raised by creatures of the wild.
70. When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.
71. If I decide to test a lieutenant's loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is no.
72. If all the heroes are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt me, I will pull out a conventional weapon instead of using my unstoppable superweapon on them.
73. I will not agree to let the heroes go free if they win a rigged contest, even though my advisors assure me it is impossible for them to win.
74. When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan designed so that my five-year-old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk "Project Overlord" and leave it lying on top of my desk.
75. I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.
76. If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle with him in an attempt to push him over the edge. I will also not engage him at the edge of a cliff. (In the middle of a rope-bridge over a river of molten lava is not even worth considering.)
77. If I have a fit of temporary insanity and decide to give the hero the chance to reject a job as my trusted lieutenant, I will retain enough sanity to wait until my current trusted lieutenant is out of earshot before making the offer.
78. I will not tell my Legions of Terror "And he must be taken alive!" The command will be "And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical."
79. If my doomsday device happens to come with a reverse switch, as soon as it has been employed it will be melted down and made into limited-edition commemorative coins.
80. If my weakest troops fail to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting time with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to my fortress.
81. If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.
82. I will not shoot at any of my enemies if they are standing in front of the crucial support beam to a heavy, dangerous, unbalanced structure.
83. If I'm eating dinner with the hero, put poison in his goblet, then have to leave the table for any reason, I will order new drinks for both of us instead of trying to decide whether or not to switch with him.
84. I will not have captives of one sex guarded by members of the opposite sex.
85. I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. "Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse." Instead it will be more along the lines of "Push the button."
86. I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.
87. My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.
88. If a group of henchmen fail miserably at a task, I will not berate them for incompetence then send the same group out to try the task again.
89. After I capture the hero's superweapon, I will not immediately disband my legions and relax my guard because I believe whoever holds the weapon is unstoppable. After all, the hero held the weapon and I took it from him.
90. I will not design my Main Control Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.
91. I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished. It might actually be important.
92. If I ever talk to the hero on the phone, I will not taunt him. Instead I will say that his dogged perseverance has given me new insight on the futility of my evil ways and that if he leaves me alone for a few months of quiet contemplation I will likely return to the path of righteousness. (Heroes are incredibly gullible in this regard.)
93. If I decide to hold a double execution of the hero and an underling who failed or betrayed me, I will see to it that the hero is scheduled to go first.
94. When arresting prisoners, my guards will not allow them to stop and grab a useless trinket of purely sentimental value.
95. My dungeon will have its own qualified medical staff complete with bodyguards. That way if a prisoner becomes sick and his cellmate tells the guard it's an emergency, the guard will fetch a trauma team instead of opening up the cell for a look.
96. My door mechanisms will be designed so that blasting the control panel on the outside seals the door and blasting the control panel on the inside opens the door, not vice versa.
97. My dungeon cells will not be furnished with objects that contain reflective surfaces or anything that can be unravelled.
98. If an attractive young couple enters my realm, I will carefully monitor their activities. If I find they are happy and affectionate, I will ignore them. However if circumstance have forced them together against their will and they spend all their time bickering and criticizing each other except during the intermittent occasions when they are saving each others' lives at which point there are hints of sexual tension, I will immediately order their execution.
99. Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45MB in size.
100. Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited Internet access.

 

Why not? Cause what happens when they get changed they have to disable it right? Which is why you just knock them out and disable the measures just as if they were getting undressed. Next you say what if you can't knock them out or it'll trigger. Well that's simple you just have the hero restrain them without knocking them out turn off the system and then knock them out. These things all have exploitable loop holes so just having others watching over your teams is both easier and more cost effective in these scenarios since you'd have to have watchers just in case anyway.

Or if they have a heart attack ya know it'd lock them in their and then you wouldn't be able to send others in to help them. OSHA wouldn't approve and the first time this happens you will get people balking at working for you. Which is why you should make sure to keep your things up to scratch

 

oh~ novel trope? iirc there version for old rpg games, mostly jrpg ver like last minute detonation or stuff

 

Because villains are the best people in the world! They create all sorts of jobs and stimulate the economy when they bait self-righteous teenagers into committing all sorts of monstrous acts of carnage on their property by pretending to be dastardly. Villains promite stories and media to help spread that dastardly image, then the would-be heroes jump at the opportunity to "do good", destroying all sorts of property, hurting people and generally being a nuisance.

Everyone else rebuilds from the ruins, discover new and exciting technologies and medical care improves to deal with the victims of the heroes. Self aware heroes who survive long enough realize how helpful the villain/hero dichotomy is to the world and help support the development of humanity!

Villains truly are the most amazing people.

This message proudly sponsored by the Goons, Thugs and Followers Organization.

 

Dude, you can have this and then the author will have the MC to gain the ability to hack into them. To hell, he can even hack a dozen of these signals, fool the supervisors to follow it into a corner and set off a trap for them. Either way, the author will think of the solution before he comes up with a problem.

 

The obvious reason why books don't do this is because it'd just add extra complications to the story that wouldn't actually improve it. But even without that the idea doesn't make that much sense. Generally speaking, the main threat to bases like this aren't people infiltrating; it's either attack from the outside or even getting discovered in the first place. Biometric monitoring like this doesn't defend against any of this and in fact makes things a lot more difficult. The most obvious new problem is the false alarm. If the settings are too sensitive then all sorts of minor events can trigger the alarm and force lockdowns. It's just not practical and it's not something you'd want in your secret base.

That's a bad example because Tarkin wanted the Millennium Falcon to get away!

 

It depends on how far you take it though, what the OP suggest do seem extreme, but it is also true that a lot of stories have bases with too little security, that could benefit from some form of this.
Depending on how far the system would extend it could help with making sure the base is quickly alerted about outside attacks as well, rather than just infiltrations.

 

In my reading experience, usually an organization will have adequate security precautions. It's just that, the main security measure for a hidden base specifically, or even a secret organization in general, is that people don't know about it. The better you set up your security system, the more noticeable it becomes. It's one thing to fight a group of magical girls or a transforming hero squad, another to fight them when they have government support.

Ideally, you'd want it to be possible for any unauthorized person who entered to be safely escorted off the premises without discovering anything weird because A) disappearances in the area would get news and police attention, and B) witnesses of "normality" help reinforce the organization's fake identity.

If you have resources to spend on security, spend them on camouflaging the base better. The exception would be if your "hidden base" is a trap and you want them to come in so you can capture them. Which I've also seen (various degrees of success).

 

Sure, but having better security isn't the same thing as the specific remedy promoted in the OP. It doesn't really do anything that would be all that useful for most of the secret bases out there, and it certainly doesn't do much for the storytelling. So both in terms of in- and out-of-story logic it's not a particularly good solution.

I agree on all points. While storywise, these bases are defeated by infiltration, the threats that they're actually meant to oppose are very different and are generally much more threatening. The fact that they get discovered in the first place is already the biggest problem and anything else is secondary.

 

Oh yeah, I don't think the exact thing the OP is suggesting would help much, just that with some alterations it could have some merit for "some" stories.
Though do be fair, the OP didn't limit it to secret bases only.