A group of characters is suddenly ambushed, but they're either knocked out with concussive force, pinched/hit a certain way, or shot with Tranquilizer Darts, Knockout Gas, Static Stun Guns or something with a similar effect, and not lethal weapons, because the ambushers want them alive. Maybe for experiments, maybe because they were trespassing on private property and the attackers were fully within their rights to attack, maybe their allies needed to get them out of there but didn't have time to explain the situation, maybe they were mistaken for someone else... the reasons vary.
Usually, the scene will involve the darts/gas/attackers coming out of nowhere before those being tranquilized/tased/hit/gassed even see their attackers. The heroes are walking along, when all the sudden - zip!, Alice goes down. Followed by Bob and Charlie, and the screen fades out.
When this happens in video games, the player's weapons and items are usually taken away. In some games, there will be an opportunity for the player to get their items back shortly after the Knockout Ambush, in others the game might give different items to replace the ones lost. Often is a Cutscene Incompetence moments, especially in games where attacked from behind only causes some health loss and the player character is supposedly wearing heavy full covering armor or a skin-tight but powerful armor.
A Sub-Trope of I Want Them Alive!. Often involves Instant Sedation. The Paralyzer will often specialize in this. If used on those guarding a building, then may coincide with The Guards Must Be Crazy. If Played for Laughs, then there may be a Non Sequitur, *Thud* involved.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- In an old issue of The Bionic Woman comic, thugs shoot Jamie Sommers, apparently killing her. Then the thugs mention that she was shot with "medicated wax pellets", drugging her into unconsciousness.
Fan Works
- The Beauty, The Beast, The Boy, and The Dragon: Once, when Stoick and Spitelout were feuding over something, Snotlout decided to help his father by ambushing Hiccup one night. He only got one hit to the head, but it knocked Hiccup out cold and left him with a concussion (with Gobber immediately taking the boy to Gothi).
- The Door (Zootopia): Towards the end of the second sequel, Edwin and Honey Badger use a smoke bomb to cause a panic during a fundraising bake sale, and ambush Eli during the panic, knocking him out and kidnapping him (unknowingly bringing along his mouse friend, Mike, who'd been sitting in his hair).
- Spider-Ninja: A heroic version. During a Heroic Blue Screen of Death, Leonardo goes over twenty-four hours without eating or sleeping while tracking down the Shredder, who nearly killed the Hamato teens. When alerted about the situation, Black Widow and Hawkeye track the turtle down. When he refuses to go with them willingly, the two Avengers gang up on him: Hawkeye (who apologizes first) subdues him with a Trick Arrow while Black Widow uses a Pressure Point trick to make him fall asleep.
- In With Strings Attached, the four are ambushed by Brox and Co. and the Raleka in Ehndris in an ambush where none of the four are meant to be killed, though only one of them (John) is actually knocked out (well, he's put to sleep). Paul is mind-controlled and led away, George is briefly paralyzed so they can take his Ring of Power and render him harmless, and the ambushers do nothing to Ringo because they know he can't do anything to anyone at that point. Brox lampshades this a bit when they asks Grunnel why they didn't just kill Ringo and George. Grunnel basically admits to being too fond of them to kill them, and also that it's funnier to have them watching helplessly while the others are being put to use.
- The Keys Stand Alone: The four are backstabbed and ambushed by The Circle on their mission to the hermit's cave. Because The Circle is good, the intent is merely to depower and imprison the four until the Black Tower falls.
Films — Animated
- In Surf's Up, the Pen-Guans take out Chicken Joe (and the cameraman) with blowdarts, right after Joe says that "the jungle is the most peaceful place on the planet."
- In Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, Alex, Marty, Gloria, Melman and King Julien are ambushed with Tranquilizer Darts by Captain DuBois and her team of animal control officers.
Films — Live-Action
- In Hudson Hawk, Almond Joy takes out Eddie, Tommy Five-Tone and Anna using curare-tipped blowgun darts.
- In Star Wars: A New Hope, the Jawas ambush R2-D2 and C-3PO with ionization blasters designed specifically to disable droids.
- In Hannibal, Hannibal is ambushed and captured by mooks wielding some sort of stun gun.
- In the Stargate movie, soldiers are knocked out by the blunt ends of staff weapons one by one.
- A scene in Daybreakers has a convoy of humans being ambushed by the vampire military. They stop to change a tire, only to have an Oh, Crap! moment when a dart is found sticking out of it. Then crossbow bolts, arrows and tranquilizer darts start flying between the two sides, until all the humans are captured for use in the blood banks.
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park: The hunters hired by InGen use nonlethal weapons on the dinosaurs they hunt. They're under orders to do so, as the animals each hold a significant investment for the company and are worth more alive then dead.
Literature
- In Firestarter, agents of The Shop capture Andy and Charlie McGee by shooting them with tranq darts from long range. Which was smart considering Andy can control minds and Charlie is pyrokinetic.
- Goblins in the Castle: While William and Igor are on their way to see Granny Pinchbottom, they get ambushed twice by goblins. The second time, William is briefly knocked out, awakens in time to see Igor get carried away, then gets hit from behind and is knocked out again. The goblins, not realizing who William is at the time, are only interested in carrying Igor away though.
- In The Perils of Enhancegirl, the main character's super-senses make her very vulnerable to chloroform, so she's often captured and subdued in this fashion. It's not limited to her. At one point Spectra is knocked out by being konked on the back of the head by a semi-crooked cop.
- At the beginning of Wings of Fire: The Hidden Kingdom, everyone in the main group except for Glory and Starlight gets ambushed and hit by tranquilizer darts courtesy of the RainWings. Later done to one of the villains under Glory's command, but Icicle stays awake long enough to realize that she's going to have to face Queen Scarlet and possibly find out that she is going to kill her brother for failing her.
Live-Action TV
- In the Arrow episode "Darkness On The Edge Of Town", Oliver has Diggle knock him and his mother out with tranquilizer darts so that Diggle can interrogate her as The Arrow and use the threat of harm to Oliver against her, with the added bonus of Moira apparently seeing Oliver and The Arrow in the same room.
- Blake's Seven
- In "Bounty", Blake teleports up to the Liberator to find it deserted except for an apparently distraught woman who claims that the crew have been killed. He finds out the real reason she's holding her hands over her face when Space Pirates spray him with Knockout Gas.
- In "Horizon", the crew teleport down to the eponymous planet one-at-a-time and get ambushed by natives with blowguns. Finally Avon is smart enough to teleport down elsewhere, which is just as well as he's the last one left.
- In Lost, when Michael leads Sawyer, Kate, Jack, and Hurley to the Others' camp, the Others ambush them from the trees using tranq darts, then gag them and put bags over their heads.
- Merlin had Merlin and Arthur hit by tranquilizer darts by a band of slave-traders.
- In My Name Is Earl, after Darnell is identified as a former secret agent, Earl and Randy keep being shot at with tranquilizer darts as a Running Gag.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons, module A3 Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords. If the Player Characters will be playing in module A4, at the end of A3 the entire Player Character party will be rendered unconscious by a green gas and captured by the Slave Lords.
- Marvel Super Heroes supplement Uncanny X-Men boxed set "Adventure Book"
- In chapter 4 "Time Out" the Player Characters are at a charity basketball game when the supervillain Arcade floods the gymnasium with Knockout Gas in order to capture them.
- Chapter 5 "Nightmare in New Guinea".
- The Player Characters are at an audience with the Mandrill when he decides to capture them. He and his soldiers open fire on them with neurostunner pistols that cause unconsciousness.
- While the Player Characters are escaping from Mandrill's base, one of his soldiers wearing Powered Armor attacks them. She uses a neurostunner built into her armor to knock them out.
- At the end of Chapter 8 "Terror in the Amazon" the Player Characters are knocked out by Arcade's Knockout Gas again the same way they were in Chapter 4.
Video Games
- At one point in Half-Life 1, you're knocked out from behind by a couple of soldiers.
- Happens in the first two games of Crysis, the former being just before Nomad encounter the North Korean General before the alien ship, the latter being happened as the protagonist is going to be examined for the suit.
- In Fallout 3 you are knocked out by a stun grenade from nowhere after recovering the G.E.C.K.
- In Fallout: New Vegas happened at the start of Dead Money, where the message The Courier received is revealed to be recorded loop and the chamber containing the message source emits a knockout gas.
- In The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, Spyro, Cynder, and Sparx are shot with enchanted arrows by Hunter's tribe that immediately renders them unconscious. Sparx only had enough time to react with a Slow "NO!"
- Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team Colonel and Team ProtoMan: In the first chapter, Lan and his friends visit his dad's office as the latter is going to show something. Suddenly, gas grenades roll from outside and burst, knocking them all out. Then some Gas Mask Mooks enter the room to confirm the gas concentration before their boss, Dr. Regal, walks in and orders them to kidnap Lan's dad and confiscate Lan's friend's PET devices. Lan himself, meanwhile, escaped notice because he's in a closed part of the room (in his dad's personal workspace, as he's told to take something from there).
- In Postal 2, two rednecks sneak up on The Postal Dude while he's urinating on his father's grave and knock him out with a shovel to the back of the head.
- In Medal of Honor: Vanguard at the end of 'Behind Enemy Lines', Keegan is knocked out with a Buttstroke from a Karabiner 98K by a Fallschirmjager.
- In S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, Scar is knocked out by a tripmine set up by Bandits in the basement containing Fang's PDA, the Bandits also take all of the player's equipment and money, although it is possible to get all of the stolen equipment back shortly afterwards, the money cannot be retrieved.
- In Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, the vampire player character gets clubbed unconscious by an enemy as they climb out of a cab, requiring them to be rescued before they're dealt a Cruel and Unusual Death. Why a Tap on the Head affects the character more than a bullet through the brain does is left unexplained.
- The final level of Outlaws is prefaced with a cutscene showing the protagonist James Anderson observing the Big Bad's mansion from a nearby cliff, only for a pair of goons to creep up and knock him out. The level proper begins with Anderson waking up disarmed and locked in a shack that has a convenient hole in the roof.
Web Animations
- SMG4 Movie: Western Spaghetti: During Meggy's nightmare, she and everyone on the train were ambushed with gas canisters by Wren and his team while on their way to the West.
Web Comics
- Batman: Wayne Family Adventures: At the start of season three, Signal is kidnapped by the Joker. Batman, while investigating the abduction, finds chloroform and dried blood on the ground. He theorizes (correctly) that Signal was injured when someone shot through the cable he was swinging on, and that he was then rushed by several thugs who sedated him (with Batman saying they'd know to do that because "[his] kids don't go down easy.")
Western Animation
- Batman: The Animated Series: In part one of "The Demon's Quest", Robin enters his dorm room after a night of patrolling only to find a gang of men waiting for him. He's hit with a tranquilizer dart and passes out within seconds. Justified in that, if Robin had been killed, then Ras al Ghul wouldn't be able to use him as a means of getting Batman to agree to join the titular quest.
- The Legend of Korra: In the episode "The Voice In The Night", Korra challenges Amon to a duel. When he doesn't show up, she assumes he chickened out and starts walking home... at which point she's jumped by dozens of Amon's mooks and knocked unconscious.
- Rick and Morty: In "Mortyplicity", when the Smiths try to hide out in a forest from rogue decoys, Rick realizes the forest is too quiet just as they are shot with Tranquilizer Darts.
- Ultimate Spider-Man: In his introduction episode, Kraven the Hunter proves himself as a Badass Normal by pulling this trope on Nova, Iron Fist, and Power Man. The first is caught off guard and shot with a tranquilizer dart. Iron Fist tries to find the attacker, only to get distracted by a smoke bomb and sedated as well. Power Man holds out the longest, but he gets chloroformed in the face and goes down as well. This all happens in roughly fifteen seconds.
Real Life
- Coyote Peterson and his team ambush a group of lions with tranquilizer darts in the Breaking Trail episode "Bite of the King
".