Expansion Pack World: Difference between revisions

It shouldn't be that hard. A little [[Scotch Tape]], a little [[Retcon]], and people won't notice. Use the same heroes for consistency and you can set the sequel in a neighbouring country in the same [[Magical Land]]!

If a work was meant to be a one-shot story and they have to expand the universe to make a sequel, they effectively have to weld new kingdoms and landmasses onto the world - adding [[Backstory]] never even hinted at in the first book. And if you look close enough, you can see the seams. However, a good series will [[Retcon]] these cleanly, tying back to the original material, so that we don't notice or care. An even better series ''will'' have [[Sequel Hook|hinted at them in the first book]], either to allow for this possibility, or just to satiate the creator's sheer pleasure in world-building.

* As mentioned above, the ''[[Narnia]]'' books needed a lot of expansion to facilitate more stories. This caused plot inconsistencies, some of which were explained in the [[Prequel]], ''The Magician's Nephew''.

** The specific example in the intro may not be one, though: the prophecy is not "four humans", but "[[Exact Words|two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve]]"

** And even here, it will only be consistent if we grant it a [[Retcon]]. In the first two books, it was implied that the deadly desert was separating Oz from the normal world full of [[Muggles]], and not from other magical lands.

* ''[[The Hobbit]]'' wasn't originally part of the same universe as ''[[The Silmarillion]]'', which was written first despite being published later. The links were originally [[Shout-Out|Shout Outs]], but while the Hobbit's sequel, ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', was being written, Tolkien decided to put both ''The Hobbit'' and its sequel into the Silmarillion's universe. In this process, inconsistencies were introduced; for instance, the One Ring seems a lot more innocent in ''The Hobbit''.

** Tolkien was at lest prudent enough to revise ''The Hobbit'' to clean up major inconsistencies -- and the "innocence" of the Ring is explained in ''The Lord of the Rings'' as Bilbo not telling the whole story because of its evil effects.

* The ''[[Stargate Verse|Stargate SG-1]]'' series introduces a vast [[Backstory]] (and several thousand planets) not hinted at in the film. The creators of the film had their own backstory in mind, which was elaborated on in spin-off novels, but the series ignored it.

** Not to mention the fact that after the main immortal godlike alien bad guys of SG-1 got defeated, they decided to piss off immortal, godlike aliens from another galaxy, or that the spin-off series, Atlantis, is set in a third, unique galaxy.

*** Well space is rather big, and the Federation is probably much bigger then the Cardassian Empire so Star Fleet could have simply not have put all it's resources into the conflict, mostly because by the time other ships could get across Federation space the war would probably be either going horribly for the Federation so their reserves would end up fighting much closer to the center of Federation space and get there faster while if they set out right away they might get there right in time to see the end of the war. Also, because the Cardassians were apparently fighting the Klingons as wall it is doubtful the war was going to last long enough to justify the costs of moving every ship in the fleet to go to war. Think of Iraq invading Kuwait, Iraq made it deep into Kuwait and caused a lot of problems, but then when the UN finally goes into action Iraq isn't much of a threat anymore. The UN didn't need to call for every member of every nation's military, just more then enough to get the job done.

** A worse example is ''[[Enterprise]]''. At least three major species (Denobulans, Xindi, and Sulaban) are introduced in the expansion pack ''prequel''. Since they were never mentioned before, it means at least three species have vanished entirely from the galaxy.

*** Actually the last two not appearing in the other series could be explained by the alternations to the time line caused by the temporal war, which in Star Trek altering the time line causes a a new universe to form instead of actually changing your own past. Since the Xindi only attacked Earth because of the tampering by time travelers and the Sulaban only have their tech as payment from the future it is quite plausible contact between the Federation and those two races simply hadn't occurred in the first timeline. This would also explain many differences in ''[[Enterprise]]'' from Star Trek cannon.

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

== [[Video Games]] ==

* Something similar to ''Zelda II'' occurs in ''[[Fallout 2]]'', which takes place to the north of the events of the previous game. The most northern (AND most significant) locations in the previous game are relegated to [[Bonus Dungeon|Bonus Dungeons]] at the southern end of the map.

** ''[[Fallout 3]]'' takes place on the east coast, around DC in a region called ''The Capital Wastelands''.

*** ''Fallout 3's'' DLC further adds to this. ''Operation Anchorage'' places the player in a simulation of a battle between the US Army and Communist Chinese in Alaska, and ''The Pitt'' allows the player to visit the remnants of Pittsburgh. ''Broken Steel'' adds a small area south west of DC, and <s>Andrews</s> Adams Air Force Base. ''Point Lookout'' adds a new, swampy portion on the Maryland coast, and ''Mothership Zeta'' is set on an alien spaceship.

*** New Vegas's DLC also do this. The first, ''Dead Money'' takes place at the Seirra Madre casino and the villa surrounding it. ''Honest Hearts'' is set in Zion National Park in Utah while ''Old World Blues'' takes place in a crater/old world research facility known as the Big Empty. The final DLC, ''Lonesome Road'', takes place in an area known as the Divide, which was apparently the site of a old world missile base and the town that sprang up around it that was torn asunder by a cataclysmic event in the Courier's past.

* Similarly, in the sequels to the ''[[Pokémon]]'' games, it's revealed that ''Red'' and ''Blue'' took place in the region of Kanto, which is just one region within a larger nation. ''Gold'' and ''Silver'' takes place in the region of Johto, just to the west. ''Ruby'' and ''Sapphire'' takes place on Hoenn, an island far to the south, and ''Diamond'' and ''Pearl'' on Sinnoh, far to the north - but they are all encapsulated within the same country, a [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture|thinly-veiled approximation of Japan]]. ''[[Pokémon Colosseum]]'', meanwhile, takes place in a different area (Orre), and its sequel, ''[[Pokémon XD]]'', adds a new section to the northwest of the region, while keeping most of the original game's locations.

*** Note that it's not the global Pokédex which has the 649 Pokémon introduced so far, but ''National''. Are Pokédexes really that new and communications that bad? Kanto definitely has had an odd influx of Johto Pokémon in those three years since the originals (Sentret, Hoothoot, Ledyba, Spinarak...) Even more [[Egregious]], Murkrow and Houndour, both known as "Johto" Pokémon and introduced in Generation II, appear in Kanto, but ''not'' Johto. Note as of Genration 5 the 'National' Pokedex can be considered at the very least multinational as the Unova region is said to be part of a different country to the previous four regions.

* A literal expansion pack world occurred in ''[[The Elder Scrolls Four|The Elder Scrolls IV]]'': the expansion pack ''Shivering Isles'' takes place in the domain of the god of madness, which is almost completely disconnected from the original world. The link is a portal on an island that magically appears in the middle of lake. The game even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] the island's sudden appearance.

* In a reversal, ''[[Ultima I]]'' had 4 continents, but became one continent with ''[[Ultima III]]''. Much [[Retcon|retconning]] was done to explain this in the later games, with at least one continent still unaccounted for.

** To be more specific: In the first game, we had the one Kingdom, Azeroth. The second game expanded the word "Azeroth" to the entire original continent, which included a region called Khaz Modan, and revealed there was also another continent named Lordaeron to the north of Azeroth, as well as another world named Draenor where the orcs came from. Then in ''Warcraft 3'' the "lost" continent of Kalimdor was found, along with an even more northerly continent of Northrend. ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' added little or no actual geography but renamed the original continents the "Eastern Kingdoms", consisting of [[Planet England|Azeroth]] (where the kingdom formerly known as Azeroth lies), Lordaeron and Khaz Modan. For the most part the franchise has avoided making places up entirely. The ''Burning Crusade'' expansion to [[WoW]] returned to the already established Draenor, although they were revealed to be a bit more intact than most had though. Admittedly, it also added a bit onto one of the existing continents for the Blood Elves to live in, and revealed the presence of a previously invisible (and previously quite unimportant) island where the Draenei crashed. ''Wrath of the Lich King'' allowed players access to Northrend. Which, while it hadn't previously been on the maps, was known to exist already and had in fact sent a number of flying ziggurats to invade the other kingdoms. The ''Cataclysm'' expansion allows players access to the oceans, previously empty and inaccessible in the game, and to elemental planes, likewise in lore but not developed or accessible. ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' ascribes to the rule that if you can't go there yourself, it's not on the map, since that would make your map a bit confusing. But most of the locations are theoretically out there already.

*** And now a new continent that had previously been hidden is being discovered in the newest expansion, Mists of Pandaria.

* Each successive game in the ''[[Suikoden]]'' series took place in a different region of the world. Averted though in that all these regions, and some bits of their culture, were already mentioned to have existed.

** Also, some of the events that are set in another region (and another game) are also referenced before the player even plays them, {{spoiler|such as Georg Prime's killing of Queen Arshtat, first mentioned in ''[[Suikoden II|II]]'' and occurred in ''[[Suikoden V|V]]'' (due to [[Anachronic Order]] of the games)}}.

*** That's not even the end of it, there are many more areas in the world that various npc's and item descriptions mention including: The southern continent (where mithra really come from), the far west (which seems to have a culture similar to that of native Americans), the other half of the near east (adventurers aren't allowed to enter the eastern half of Aht Urghan making it impossible to get to any part of the continent that is east of the city), and the far east (the [[Doomed Hometown]] of an important npc). Suffice it to say that SE won't run out of expansion fodder anytime soon.

* Lampshaded in ''Puzzle Quest: Challenge Of The Warlords'', where realms ruled by Bane and Sartek's fellow Horsemen (Band and Sartek are Death and War, respectively) are explicitly mentioned, as well as other elf kingdoms.

** Well, it ''is'' based on the pre-existing ''Warlords'' series, which had four games and three spinoffs prior to this, so it's not like they had a shortage of locations.

* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' added new continents, Cantha and Elona, for its second and third campaigns. The fourth instead expanded the original continent.

** The new continents were foreshadowed in the first game, and players could see Elona, if they knew where to go.

* Happens with ''the [[Dungeon Siege]]'' expansion pack Legends of Aranna: The entirety of the expansion pack occurs in a part of Ehb that had not been known about, and features a race thought to be long dead in the multiplayer campaign. Less so with the sequel, ''Dungeon Siege II'', as the original stated that Ehb was formed by the Tenth Legion as they fled the collapse of the Empire of Stars. Subverted in DSII: Broken World as {{spoiler|the Second Great Cataclysm at the end of ''DSII'' caused massive changes to the land allowing the overall layout to remain the same while still adding new areas to explore.}}

* ''[[Majesty]]'' plays this so straight it's almost a [[Lampshade Hanging]] with the aptly-named ''Northern Expansion'' [[Expansion Pack]], which reveals a previously inaccessible northern half of the world map. Possibly a subversion, as it's visibly the same world map graphic save for the fact you can now scroll north of the mountain range in the middle of the continent; perhaps the new content was cut from the original game due to time constraints?

* ''[[Dragon Age II]]'' takes place in the city of Kirkwall, nearby Sundermount and the Wounded Coast. ''Legacy'' expands on this with Hawke travelling to a Grey Warden fortress in the Vimmark Mountains, while ''Mark of the Assassin'' has Hawke take part in a heist at Chateau-Haine, near the border with Nevarra.

== [[Web Original]] ==