# Stop Right There, Criminal Scum The Imperial Guard's stiffly delivered warning from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion became a durable gaming catchphrase after players kept getting stopped for petty in-game crimes. YouTube supercuts, Tumblr edits and Reddit mashups turned the guard's flat voice acting into a template fans still quote to call out rule-breaking behavior nearly two decades later. ## Origin Bethesda Softworks released The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in the United States on March 20, 2006[1]. When a player character committed a crime, nearby Imperial Guards would run up and confront them with a scripted rotation of lines including "Stop right there, criminal scum!" and "Pay the court a fine or serve your sentence."[9] Bethesda developed the game itself; the meme grew out of fan clips of the arrest dialogue rather than from a single credited creator, and no individual is documented as the format's originator. - **Platform:** The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (game) / YouTube (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2006 ## Overview Stop Right There, Criminal Scum is one of several arrest lines shouted by the Imperial Guard NPCs in Bethesda's 2006 role-playing game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion[1]. The catchphrase travels with a small family of sibling lines, including "Stop! You've violated the law!" and "Then pay with your blood!", all delivered in the guard's famously stilted voice acting[4]. Fans quote the phrases whenever someone is caught doing something petty, from in-game theft screenshots to jokes about rule breaking online. The format usually shows up two ways. Text posts paste the guard's transcribed line as a punchline under a screenshot of a minor infraction, and image macros crop the helmeted guard's face, often heavily compressed or distorted for extra effect[7]. Video edits lean on the same dialogue clips looped, autotuned or remixed into songs[2]. The comedic weight comes from the mismatch between the guard's grave tone and the trivial nature of whatever crime triggered the confrontation. ## How to Use Common convention is to reply with the line, or a still of the guard, whenever someone posts about breaking a rule, however trivial. The catchphrase is often typed in all caps to mimic the guard's shouted delivery, and image macros typically use a low-resolution or distorted crop of the guard's face to lean into the joke about early-2000s game visuals. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Stop Right There, Criminal Scum? It's a catchphrase taken from the Imperial Guard arrest dialogue in the 2006 game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, quoted online to call out petty rule-breaking[4]. ### Where did Stop Right There, Criminal Scum come from? The line originates from the Imperial Guard NPCs in Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, released on March 20, 2006[1]. ### What does Stop Right There, Criminal Scum mean? In the game it's what a guard shouts when your character commits a crime; online it's used as a mock-serious call-out when someone does something they shouldn't[5]. ### How do you use Stop Right There, Criminal Scum? People drop the phrase or the guard's image as a reply to posts about minor infractions, sometimes with distorted image macros for comic effect[7]. ### Is Stop Right There, Criminal Scum still popular? It's a classic gaming catchphrase that kept resurfacing through the 2010s in Tumblr and Reddit edits well after Oblivion's release[8]. ## References 1. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_IV:_Oblivion]() 2. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_2Jduxc2P8]() 3. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCsMKypvmB0]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/stop-right-there-criminal-scum]() 5. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Stop%21%20You%20have%20violated%20the%20law%21]() 6. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP93s--bv3A]() 7. [https://danishbuttercookies.tumblr.com/post/180830417754/scamp-on-a-lamp-darkwavepossum#notes]() 8. [https://www.reddit.com/r/raimimemes/comments/aguwar/raimi_and_oblivion_in_one_meme_truly_a_glorious/]() 9. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaJJP_7jbxs]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/stop-right-there-criminal-scum Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library