While a Kill Sat can be called the sword, the Save Sat can be called the shield. This is when a satellite, intentionally or accidentally, crashes into something and helps out the heroes, either saving the protagonists from the Big Bad's superweapon by crashing into the control unit, tipping off the heroes that a huge ship is parked outside earth orbit by the sudden cut in communications, or by providing a distraction to buy the heroes time to think up a plan.
Different from a Killsat since a Save Sat usually rams into something, and different from a Colony Drop as the satellites in question are usually smaller and usually help (or harm) the heroes in their quest instead of causing mass destruction everywhere.
The Save Sat can be anything from a humble communications satellite to a space station.
This can quite possibly be a rather literal example of Deus ex Machina (a miracle that saves the heroes at the last minute, without being properly set up in the story) and Death from Above (falling objects that are fatal).
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: In the final episode of 2nd Gig, the Tachikomas ram the satellite containing the A.I.s into a nuclear missile to save the lives of their comrades on the ground, all while singing a happy children's song that symbolizes that they've finally learned of the concept of death, and aren't afraid to die for a good cause.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: In the English dub, Kaiba sets the Industrial Illusions satellite to crash into their mainframe, bringing down their computer defenses and allowing him to access the data at Duelist Kingdom (in the Japanese version, he's just using the satellite to hack into the mainframe).
Films — Animation
- Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel: Candace, while trying to figure out how to release the Marvel Heroes' powers from a containment unit in Phineas and Ferb's spaceship, presses a Big Red Button that sends the satellite hurtling back to Earth. Fortunately for everyone, it crash-lands right on top of the villains' superweapon, foiling their plans to destroy the Tri-State Area.
Films — Live-Action
- Battleship: The aliens' communication ship collides with a random satellite orbiting Earth while traveling at interstellar speed and crashes into Hong Kong. Sure, it's bad for the Chinese, but the fact that the aliens don't have a ready means of letting their homeworld know that Earth is ripe for the taking is the only reason humanity even has a chance.
- Independence Day: The sudden cut in the satellite communications network helps tip off the earthlings that the aliens are coming.
- Men in Black 3: The very end has one of these avert a potential asteroid strike, but seemingly only Griffin is aware of it. A close one, indeed.
Literature
- Death Masks: Ebenezar McCoy kills a vampire who had challenged his former apprentice, Harry Dresden, to a duel (and had cheated). He did this by pulling a Soviet-era satellite from orbit and making it crash onto the vampire's compound, killing the vampire and most of his retinue (sadly it also killed the humans they fed from).
- Greg Mandel Trilogy: In Mindstar Rising, Julia Evans uses her authority to stop Event Horizon's satellite from gaining higher orbit, as she's planning to drop it on the personal yacht of a Corrupt Corporate Executive she has a grudge against. It ends up being dropped on the former communist dictator of Great Britain, when the two turn out to be involved in a conspiracy.
- Halo: The Fall of Reach: The UNSC station Cradle
gets sacrificed with all its crew to absorb a Covenant barrage.
- Sky Masters: A Chinese destroyer is about to nuke the city of Davao. Fortunately, the Americans neutralize it by dropping a satellite right on top of it.
Music
- The Cruxshadows: The plot of the story concept in Telemetry of a Fallen Angel, in which it's implied the "save" is in a spiritual/metaphorical as well as literal sense.
Video Games
- Criminal Case: World Edition: Subverted in "Case 53: Politically Incorrect". After President Hewett requests proof that SOMBRA exists so he can consider taking actions, Elliot tries to bring BØB out of space and use its hard drive full of SOMBRA information to prove it, but unfortunately it gets hacked and taken away from the Bureau before it can touch ground.
- Cyborg (2007): A satellite acts as an Orbiting Particle Shield that protects the characters from an attack.
- Skies of Arcadia: During the final dungeon, the Elders of the Great Silver Shrine crash their space-based home into the dome around Soltis to give the heroes a chance to get inside.
Western Animation
- Megas XLR: When Megas faces off against a colossal Gloft mecha, a satellite taken down by a wayward missile Coop had fired earlier crashes into the Glorft machine and deactivates it.
- Metalocalypse: In 'P.R. Klok', a big P.R. plate Dethklok brought into space (a satellite in the loosest sense of the term) collides with and diverted comet that is about to fall on a spot where Dethklok is performing.
- X-Men: Evolution: Apocalypse is running amok somewhere in Mexico, and all other X-Men around have failed to dent him. Enter the new fully evolved Magneto, cape billowing behind him. He proceeds to use his powers to slam man-made satellites into Apocalypse. Mind you, all that does is piss Apocalypse off.
- Young Justice (2010): After numerous alien incursions using zeta beam technology, the Justice League sets up a series of satellites using technology provided by Adam Strange that prevents teleportation to Earth from other worlds.
