Alternate Universe: Difference between revisions

 

Specific variations:

 

Another type of '''Alternate Universe''' is that which doesn't take any of the characters, but instead takes concepts, or machines. Such '''Alternate Universes''' are uncommon, but exist. ''[[Gundam]]'' is the perfect example, with no less than ''seven'' separate universes, all of them rehashing essentially the same plots and concepts—in particular, the conflict between those living in space and those living on Earth. With [[Humongous Mecha|giant robots.]]

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* Every path in the multi-route ''[[Nasuverse|TYPE-MOON]]'' games is a potential outcome of the main scenario, which makes it rather difficult to establish [[Canon|the rules of the 'verse]] due to the plot differences in each route; according to [[Word of God]], [[The Multiverse|all of them are canon]].

* In the fourth ''[[Suzumiya Haruhi]]'' novel, ''The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya'', Kyon suddenly finds himself in a world without supernatural powers, with what SOS members remain leading normal, human lives.

* ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' has one of these in Episode 26 with {{spoiler|the [[Big Bad]]'s [[Lotus Eater Machine]].}}

** In a different vein, the new ''Parallel Works'' music videos leading up to the movie seem to be using these.

* ''[[Zot]]'' It is left ambiguous which Earth is the real Earth, but it is hinted that Zot's world is merely our Earth with all the bad parts taken out. It becomes more evident when it is revealed that the year is always 1965.

* ''[[Sinister Dexter]]'' introduced an alternate universe, which fans dubbed the [[Fan Nickname|Doppelverse]], around the time it [[Cerebus Syndrome|got serious]]. The [[Point of Divergence]] is that in the Doppelverse, the title characters were killed while still a pair of punk kids, with the result that most of their enemies are still alive and can [[Back from the Dead|come back to make trouble]].

 

== Fan Works ==

* ''[[The One (film)|The One]]'' is a cross between this and [[Conservation of Ninjitsu]]. The villain is traveling around to the various universes killing all the alternate versions of himself so he'll have all the power that would otherwise be spread out between them. Since the hero is one of the alternates, he winds up with bigger and bigger slices of the power pie as well, making for a ''battle royale'' when it's down to just the two of them.

* [[Super Mario Bros. (film)|Super Mario Bros. The Movie]] posits a "sub-dimension" created through the impact of the meteorite into earth that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs continued to evolve in this sub-dimension in the city of "Dinohattan", a city mirroring New York city.

 

== Literature ==

* In [[Teresa Edgerton]]'s ''[[Celydonn]]'' trilogy, the Inner Celydonn plays this role to Celydonn proper, so that, for example, the version of Tir Gwyngelli known in traveller's tales really exists as the home of [[The Fair Folk]].

* [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[The Number of the Beast]]'' and ''[[The Cat Who Walked Through Walls]]'' are based on this, exploring various fictional universes created not only by Heinlein but also others, especially [[Land of Oz|Oz]].

{{quote|'''Ridcully:''' You'd think I'd think of ''me'', wouldn't you? What a bastard!}}

* In ''[[Dragonlance]]'', Raistlin succeeds in becoming a god and killing every other god as well as all life in Krynn. Then Caramon time travels back to prevent him from succeeding.

* Robert J. Sawyer's trilogy, "Hominids", "Humans", "Hybrids", is all about an alternate universe where Neanderthals didn't go extinct, but homo sapiens did.

* [[Michael Kurland]] has a few examples involving world-hopping, including ''The Unicorn Girl'' and ''The Whenabouts Of Burr''.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* ''[[Wizards of Waverly Place]]'' had an episode where Alex goes through a mirror and enters a parallel universe where nearly everything is about her and in her favor.

* The ''[[Community]]'' episode "Remedial Chaos Theory" features the group rolling a die to choose who will go to the door to get the pizza. [[Genre Savvy|Abed]] warns that this will create 6 (actually 7) alternate universes. Everyone else of course dismisses this, but we the audience get to watch each one unfold. The differences ranges from different characters hooking up, mental break downs occurring, everyone having an awesome night, and ''everything going to shit''.

 

== Multiple Media ==

* ''[[Bionicle]]'' has the Olmak, also called the Mask of Dimensional Gates. [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Does exactly that.]] Its wearer, Brutaka, has used it both to teleport and to send enemies to a dimension they probably won't return from. He tried to send his former friend Axonn into the Zone of Darkness (a pitch-black dimension with only flat, featureless plain with gravity), and also used his (then damaged) mask to teleport Takanuva to Karda Nui to warn the heroes of a great danger. However, the mask malfunctioned, and sent Takanuva into both [[Alternate History]] and a [[Bizarro Universe]]. After finally finding the another Olmak in one of those universes, Takanuva entered inter-dimensional space and got to his intended destination. This is a [[The Multiverse|Multiverse]] with a twist, as "our" dimension is explicitly called "the real universe", the rest are only pocket dimensions that shows how things would've turned out if they were done differently. Brutaka's mask was destroyed eventually, but the lunatic villain Vezon managed to get his hands on another one... and it ended up fusing to his face. Now he is a living dimensional gate, and has already visited several other universes (among them a few of those that Takanuva got lost in).

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** Part of what made ''TORG'' such an interesting game is that it was based on distinctly different rules for how reality worked, depending on the context of the home dimension. The Nile Empire, for example, had no room for moral ambiguities: every character was either Good or Evil, though they could change from one to the other under the right circumstances. Characters could engage in literal 'reality duels' with opponents from different dimensions, and the [[Big Bad|High Lords]] could do the same with entire areas of real estate.

* The ''[[GURPS]] [[Infinite Worlds]]'' setting involves the [[Player Characters|PCs]] as agents travelling through alternate universes. Officially ''all'' GURPS settings are universes within the ''Infinite Worlds''. This includes assorted [[Alternate History|Alternate Histories]] (''GURPS [[Magitek|Technomancer]]'', ''GURPS [[Instant AI, Just Add Water|Reign of Steel]]''), several universes where [[All Myths Are True]] (''GURPS [[King Arthur|Camelot]]'', ''GURPS [[Atlantis]]''), multiple worlds with superheros (''GURPS Supers'', ''GURPS International Super Teams''), and even universes inexplicably modeled on the popular fiction of the baseline universe (''GURPS [[Conan the Barbarian|Conan]]'', ''GURPS [[Discworld]]'')!

* Wizards of the Coast long ago published a set of generic supplements for handling deities in roleplaying games, called ''The Primal Order''. One of the books in this series, ''Chessboards'', covered in exquisite detail how to design and manage an entire multiverse complete with cosmology.

* This trope is a common excuse for game masters to use, when importing player characters from one tabletop role-playing campaign to another.

 

== Video Games ==

** It also seems to cross over into ''[[The Multiverse]]'' with certain people as they can go to other dimensions, and even meet themselves if they aren't careful.

* The ''[[Resistance]]'' games take place in a setting where after [[World War I]] Germany's economy wasn't totally devastated, therefore [[Adolf Hitler]] never rises to power and there was no [[World War II]]. Instead, creatures known as Chimera take over the entirety of Europe and by the sequel have wiped out the US.

* The DLC for ''[[Dragon Age]]'' entitled ''The Darkspawn Chronicles'' pitches the idea of a world where [[The Hero]] died near the beginning of the game, thus leaving [[The Woobie|Alistair]] to save the day. {{spoiler|It does not end well.}}

* In the second installment of the "Timeline" mod trilogy for ''[[Half-Life (series)|Half-Life]]'', Gordon Freeman is transported to a parallel Earth where the US never rebelled (the major superpowers are the British Empire, the Soviets and the Japanese), and an ice age began some 300 years earlier, threatening human survival. That world's Gordon Freeman has failed, so our world's equivalent is sent to stop the Xen invasion there (as well as an invasion of time-travelling Nazis from our dimension).

* The [[Excuse Plot|plot]] of the [[Portal 2]] PeTI DLC involves this. Earth-Prime's version of Aperture is nearly broke, so they decided to cut test chamber construction costs by sneaking the designs into alternate versions of Aperture, letting ''them'' build it, then stealing them back. You can either play the part of a test chamber designer with the new level editor, or a test subject traveling between universes to test the new chambers. You end up running into various versions of Cave Johnson, all of whom are still running tests and crazy to some extent (save for the one who [[Half Life|stopped the resonance cascade experiments after buying Black Mesa]]).

* The ''Dawn of Victory'' mod for ''[[Sins of a Solar Empire]]'' has its premise based on an [[Alternate History]] where the course of [[World War Two]] is changed by the arrival of a powerful alien race known as the Scinfaxi (inspired by [[Harry Turtledove]]'s ''[[Worldwar]]'' series). After losing much territory to the invaders, the main world powers manage to develop nuclear weapons and beat them back to the Southern Hemisphere. They then rebuild and consolidate their power. Eventually, the Northern Hemisphere is divided between the Soviet Union, the Greater German Reich, and the Democratic Federation. They manage to develop interstellar flight and settle other worlds. After the Scinfaxi resume their advance, the human powers evacuate the remaining population from Earth and nuke the entire planet from orbit. Fast-forward a few centuries. The three main human nations (as well as many smaller states) are spread out over many star systems and vying for domination. Meanwhile, the Scinfaxi (a vast interstellar empire) are preparing to strike again.

 

== Web Animation ==

* In [[Goblins]], a dungeon called the ''Maze of Many'' serves as a point where the dimensions in the multiverse are drawn together. Adventurers who attempt to conquer the dungeon are required to compete against multiple versions of themselves, each from a different reality, being allowed infinite retries until each has completed the dungeon once and each reality is 'satisfied'.

* In ''[[Homestuck]]'', initiating {{spoiler|the Scratch}} creates one of these by [[Reset Button|resetting the conditions of the game]], including the players and their universe. {{spoiler|As a result, the players of the initial session switch places with their ectobiological parents, and vice-versa.}} This has happened twice so far: once to Earth, and once to {{spoiler|Alternia}}.

 

== Web Original ==

* ''[[Fate Nuovo Guerra]]'' takes one of ''[[Fate/stay night|Fate Stay Night]]'''s bad endings and runs with it as their [[Backstory]]. The Fifth Grail War results in the destruction of Fuyuki City, prompting the Einzberns to start a new Grail War elsewhere.

* A popular fad on [[YTMND]] is to take pre-existing memes and create Alternate Universe counterparts, usually under the PTKFGS moniker ("Punch The Keys, For God's Sake!", another one of [[Sean Connery]]'s lines from the famous scene in ''[[Finding Forrester]]'' that named the website), although even more Alternate Universe versions exist, usually as either "Yes Yes" or the elusive "Fourth Corner", where no-one can really agree on a final name for the latter.

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Futurama]]'':

** In "The Farnsworth Parabox", Farnsworth creates a box leading to an alternate universe where coin tosses have different outcomes. There are also lots of other boxes, leading to other alternate universes, each linking to each other.

** In "The Late Phillip J. Fry", after Farnsworth, Bender, and Fry go to the edge of the universe, a new, identical universe starts, and then that universe ends, so they end up in a third identical universe.

* ''[[Invader Zim]]'' seems like it may take place in one, but then again, it may just be [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]].

** Notably, the Justice Lords Universe depicted Arkham Asylum, and Gotham City for that matter, as very bright, Metropolis-esque places, in one of the few instances of the city being shown during the day.

** ''[[Superman: The Animated Series]]'' also featured a universe where Lois died, prompting Superman to team up with Luthor and take over Metropolis.

* An episode of ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' featured a timeline where Cobra had succeeded in taking over the world.

* In ''[[The Secret Saturdays]]'', the whole family (except the female lead's brother) has a twin in an alternate universe, who all try to take out the heroes as [[Psycho Rangers]].

** "The Magicks of Megas-Tu" has the crew discover a world where much of their equipment doesn't work, but [[Functional Magic]] is commonplace. Oddly, [[The Spock|Spock]] adapts quickly.

*** Presumably he [[Sufficiently Analyzed Magic|Sufficiently Analyzed]] it first.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Settings]]

[[Category:Speculative Fiction]]

[[Category:Alternate History Tropes]]

[[Category:Plots]]