Clock Roaches: Difference between revisions

One of the possible results of a [[Time Crash]]. When it's people doing it, not some kind of natural force, it's [[Time Police]]. Compare to the [[Necro Non Sequitur]], a gratuitous and Rube Goldberg-y way for time to deal with interlopers. Not to be confused with the [[Butterfly of Doom]], in which the insect punishing the time traveler for interfering with the natural progression of events does so by dying, when it's not just a metaphor to begin with.

 

 

Similar are creatures out for those who mess with space. You may look for examples in [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place]]. Has absolutely nothing to do with the Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities.

** The Reapers, [[Monster of the Week|Flying Killer Time Gargoyles]] from "Father's Day". The Ninth Doctor describes them in terms similar to white blood cells—when a paradox is triggered, they clean up the "wound" by erasing everything inside it. "Before" the Time War, the Gallifreyans kept paradoxes in order in a much less destructive way, but now they're gone.

** The original series serial ''The Time Monster'' had the Chronovores, which were similar enough to the Reapers (giant winged things that eat people's timelines) that they may as well be considered a related critter.

* ''[[Sapphire and Steel]]'': You're never quite sure what the agents of time look like, but you definitely don't want to hang around and find out.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

 

** The 3rd edition of the game have the Inevitables, constructs born in Mechanus (the plane of absolute law) to enforce certain laws, both natural and invented. One kind of Inevitable, known as the Quaruts, maintain the sanctity of time and space itself.

* In ''[[Continuum]]'', the players themselves are [[Time Police]]. However, if the players fail, Clock Roaches known as Inheritors show up to clean things up, and the game makes it clear that you do ''not'' want to get in their way.

* ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'': The Wrinkle is the Paradox Spirit that shows up to deal with people who have pushed their luck one too many times in tampering with how things should be, especially temporally. Wrinkle does this by rewriting time so that the offender was never born. They always gives offenders a chance to undo whatever it was they did first. This is most likely due to the fact that he is ''[[Big Bad|the]]'' most powerful Paradox spirit in Mage by an order of magnitude. For example, all the mage has to do is apologize for what they did and agree that they shouldn't have done it, and Wrinkle does the actual work of rewinding events to the point where the offending [[Reality Warper]] can try something else.

* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' had Klaus cover the town with [[Time Stop]] effect. And then the Castle (which wasn't fully disabled even by ''this'') [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20140609 explains] why even Heterodynes weren't crazy enough to play with such things. Doing this at the very place where they performed "[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20130415 Dark Rites]" that "utilize mysterious lost sciences to hold back ''hideous extradimensional beings'' that would ''ravage our world!''" suddenly starts looking like a really bad idea.

{{quote|There are... others who see time ''differently''. When it is meddled with, they ''notice''. }}

 

== Western Animation ==