For Want of a Nail: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
m (revise quote template spacing) |
No edit summary |
||
| (36 intermediate revisions by 11 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:2-
{{quote|"''What happens if Bobo causes one of those weird numbers where he goes back into the past and steps on a butterfly or something, and because of that mammals as we know them never evolve, and because of that mankind never invents slot machines, and my favorite hobby goes straight down the toity, huh?!''"
|'''Pearl''', ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]''}}
An [[Alternate Timeline]] or [[Elseworld]] (often in time travel stories) in which one small change has a ripple effect, resulting in massive changes. The technical term (from one of the seminal papers on chaos theory) is "sensitive dependence on initial conditions", but it's better known colloquially as "the butterfly effect". [[It's a Wonderful Plot]] is a subtrope where the protagonist is the nail. [[Butterfly of Doom]] is a subtrope where no good deed goes unpunished. The [[Unwitting Instigator of Doom]] is the character who steps on the butterfly/distracts the hero at the wrong moment/innocently reveals the [[Big Secret]] and [[The Scrappy|will be hated]] for it.
Derives from a proverb-turned-poem which traces its origins as far back as the 14th century (making this [[Older Than Print]]). Probably [[wikipedia:For Want of a Nail|the most well-known version]] is the one which appeared in [[Benjamin Franklin]]'s "Poor Richard's Almanac":
{{quote|''For want of a nail, the shoe was lost;
''For want of a shoe, the horse was lost;
''For want of a horse, the rider was lost;
''For want of a rider, the message was lost;
''For want of the message, the battle was lost;
''For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost,
''And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.'' }}
Said poem is itself derived from a verse by George Herbert's ''Jacula Prudentium'', [[Newer Than They Think|written in 1651]].
Line 19 ⟶ 20:
A [[Deal with the Devil]] will often have the "nail" as a price, something of seemingly small consequence, that is in fact huge.
Compare [[
Compare [[All the Myriad Ways]]. If the originals meet their alternates, may result in [[Other Me Annoys Me]] or [[Future Me Scares Me]]. Also compare [[The "Unicorn In The Garden" Rule]]; in a well-crafted story the nail will be the "one unicorn" that precipitates all the changes.
Often overlaps with [[In Spite of a Nail]], because many stories wouldn't be that interesting if ''everything'' was different.
{{examples}}
== [[Advertising]] ==
* A Staples Business Depot TV commercial from the 90s, directly references the trope with a different scenario.
{{quote|For want of a paperclip, a page was lost.
Line 36 ⟶ 39:
* Toshiba Electronics commercials depict this inside the mind of the CEO, leading him to hold back on releasing the product to make sure it has all the features it needs, regardless of the cost. For example, adding shock-proof hard drives to their PC's. He imagines an electrician dropping his laptop, picking it up and plugging it into an outlet at a relay substation, which causes a spark that knocks out the power. This leads to a person's roommate opening the refrigerator, sniffing some milk, noticing it's spoiled but drinks it anyway, immediately turns into a zombie, and unleashes the [[Zombie Apocalypse]] on the world.
* ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'' has a bad case of this; every arc it's something else in the initial
▲== Anime & Manga ==
▲* ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'' has a bad case of this; every arc it's something else in the initial factors--minor things like a man moving into the village or even Keiichi giving someone a ''doll''--that sets off a completely different scenario of bloody tragedy.
** The doll was important to the one receiving it. That's why it changes things.
* The basis for the plot of ''[[
* The reboot of the ''[[Rozen Maiden]]'' manga features Jun, the protagonist of the original manga, who decided to take the [[Red Pill, Blue Pill|blue pill]] path instead, resulting in him not meeting the dolls and remaining a [[Hikikomori]] for the remainder of his mid school duration. We meet him as a disgruntled college student with a bad side job, and frequently being laughed at due to his past status as a hikikomori. That is, until Shinku and the other dolls from the original continuity appear in his continuity...
* One of the recurring themes in ''[[Legend of the Galactic Heroes]]'', where seemingly minor events cause a huge impact on history. What if Kircheis had been armed during Ansbach's assassination attempt {{spoiler|and survived instead of [[Taking the Bullet|died]]}}? What if the supply depot Muller attacked had fought back instead of surrendering, so that he couldn't [[Big Damn Heroes|rescue Reinhard]]? What if Hilde hadn't persuaded Mittermeyer to attack Heinessen to force a ceasefire, or if Yang ignored said ceasefire? What if Yang hadn't allowed the "Imperial escorts" on his ship {{spoiler|so that they couldn't assassinate him}}?
* In the ''[[Mai-Otome]]'' manga, Sergay is not Nina's father and Nagi, while not a very good person, is not the main antagonist. As a result, Nina stays on the heroes' side for the entire story.
** On a lesser scale, Sergay is not anonymously paying for Arika's education in the manga, forcing her to take on several side jobs and leaving her no time to study, at one point putting her in danger of failing and dropping out.
* In [[Dragonball Z]], the main timeline ends up being VERY different than the one Trunks comes from for reasons that aren't really well explained. For example, Androids #17 and #18 are much more powerful than their alternate universe counterparts in the main timeline but not really all that evil (they do initially intend to kill Goku out of boredom as their programming dictates but don't really go out of their way to hurt anyone else). Android #19 didn't exist in the Trunks' timeline nor did Android #20 (Dr. Gero had never turned himself into an Android). Goku also got sick MUCH later than he did in Trunks' timeline.
**
*** The difference in strength between the main and alternate timeline versions of #17 & #18 was explained differently in the manga. In the ‘Trunks: The Story’ chapter when Gohan was fighting #17 & #18, immediately before #17 kills Gohan, #17 tells him that he’d been using no more than half of his power. After a short timeskip we see Bulma & Trunks debating the need for a time machine. Trunks thinks he’s already gotten strong enough to defeat 17 & 18, while Bulma thinks he’s too naïve since he was only at about Gohan’s level and Gohan was still killed. After this we see Trunks leave to fight them and the next panel we see they’ve put him in the hospital. There is no actual proof that the full magnitude of 17’s power (and possibly also 18’s) was revealed to Trunks before he went back in time. Assuming that Trunks was unaware of 17 & 18’s full power in his timeline, it would explain his surprise at their power in the main timeline. This would also indicate that the androids from the main timeline were actually just as strong as those in the alternate timelines and that Trunks was simply unaware of that fact.
* In ''[[Blood
* In ''[[Pokémon]]'', Damien's Charmander might have returned to him (as Damien wished for him to do so, due to Charmander showing strength he hadn't previously) if he hadn't decided to leave him to die out in the rain. If this had happened, Ash wouldn't have gained a new Pokémon for his team, though this wouldn't necessarily stop Charmander from evolving into a Charmeleon and later a Charizard.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* The [[Elseworld
** It turns out that {{spoiler|much of the reason for the anti-metahuman paranoia is fueled by the Kryptonian Eradicator Jimmy Olsen, which in the absence of Superman is able to operate much more slowly and subtly as far as its attempted conquest of Earth.}}
** And also [[The Joker]] {{spoiler|kills Batgirl and Robin. Horrifically. In front of Batman. Who goes [[Unstoppable Rage]] mode and kills him too.}} It's not even shown on-panel but it's still [[Nightmare Fuel]].
*** And in the end, the cycle closes with {{spoiler|the Amish community where Not!Supes lives being involved in the conflict. Jimmy kills Not!Supes's [[Muggle Foster Parents]] in front of him, thus he ends up adopted again... by the Kents.}}
** Another well-known Elseworlds comic, ''[[Superman: Red Son]]'' has a slight difference in the rotation of the Earth as the "nail", so Superman lands in the Soviet Union, eventually rising to become leader of the union. Similarly, ''Superman: True Brit''... you get the idea.
* ''[[Star Wars]]'' did its own spin on this with the limited [[Star Wars Expanded Universe|comic series]] ''Star Wars: Infinities'', each story exploring how such a change would affect each of the Original Trilogy films. In specific...
** In ''[[A New Hope]]'', Luke fails to destroy the Death Star because one of his torpedoes malfunctions. As a result, the Empire catches several Rebels trying to escape Yavin, including Leia, who Vader trains as his apprentice. In the meantime Luke trains with Yoda, and after five years he confronts Vader and Leia, ultimately ending when Yoda [[Colony Drop
** In ''[[The Empire Strikes Back]]'', Luke dies on Hoth, leading Han and Leia to seek Yoda. Lando doesn't betray Han, getting Cloud City destroyed.
** In ''[[Return of the Jedi]]'',
*** [[Leaning on the Fourth Wall|In a nice touch,]] the highly trained Force users can ''sense'' that things are not as they should be, though they don't quite know what is going on. They just know the Force is going ''nuts''.
* ''[[Star Trek]]'' has the series ''The Last Generation'', where the assassination plot from ''[[Star Trek VI: The
* The Prophecy of the Destruction of the [[Green Lantern]] Corps foretold that all of the enemies would unite to destroy the Corps. The turning point would be when the Five Incursions of the Empire of Tears would join to destroy the Corps, Ranx destroying [[Genius Loci|Mogo]] with a Blink Bomb and the [[Creepy Child|Children of the White Lobe]] killing Sodom Yat. All the players except the Empire of Tears joined in the Sinestro Corps War, all because Sinestro pissed the Kingdom of Tears off back during his days with the [[Green Lantern]] Corps. When still a good guy, Sinestro arrested the leader of the Kingdom of Tears for their part in murdering Abin Sur, whose replacement Hal Jordan would lead the [[Green Lantern]] Corps into battle to save the Corps.
** Of course, this also ties into the War of the Lights/Blackest Night prophecy; at the start of the Sinestro Corps War, the Guardians revolted against Ganthet, the Guardian who insisted on recording the prophecy of how the [[Green Lantern
* In ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'', Jon Osterman's flashbacks in Chapter 5 reveal that he believes that Janey Slater's watch band breaking is the nail that lead to the {{spoiler|accident that turned him into his god-like form as Dr. Manhattan. The watch band broke, somebody stepped on it, and then John took it to fix the watch. One month later, after he had fixed it, he left the watch in his labcoat, which he left in the intrinsic field chamber. Janey asked for the watch, Jon went back to the lab to get it, and was locked in the chamber, and then... disintegrated.}}
** The watch band breaking led to Osterman becoming Dr. Manhattan, and thus to the differences between the story's history of the Vietnam War and Cold War and [[Real Life]]'s history, but the timeline had diverged before then during World War II or so when costumed vigilantes began operating, and there's no definite "nail" for that part. (Although the presence of costumed heroes as reality meant that superhero comics were all but dead. The big thing? Pirates.)
*** Note here that Osterman probably wouldn't acknowledge there was a "nail" at all. Since he sees all times in his life simultaneously, his worldview is that everything in his life is fated to happen - that is, there is no divergent timeline that the "lack of a nail" could create.
* [[Marvel Comics]] has the ''What If?'' series, a title based ''entirely'' on this trope. Issues that occur include what would have happened if [[Spider-Man]] had joined the Fantastic Four; what would have happened if Rick Jones had been turned into the Hulk instead of Bruce Banner; what would have happened if the Invisible Woman had stayed with Namor; what would have happened if Jane Foster had found Mjolnir instead of Dr. Donald Blake; what would have happened if Aunt May had been killed by the burglar instead of Uncle Ben, etc. What's especially noteworthy about these series is how much '''worse''' off many of the characters tend to be if things didn't turn out the way they did (interestingly, Spider-Man, usually Marvel's whipping boy, comes off better than before at least as often as he comes off worse, probably because the default state of his life is suuuuuck).
** One particularly noteworthy example is the story ''[[Bullet Points]]'', where one bullet kills Dr. Erskine and Ben Parker. Effect? {{spoiler|There's no [[Captain America (comics)]], Steve Rogers is [[Iron Man]], Peter Parker becomes [[
** While ''[[What If]]'' generally used this trope straight, stories occasionally [[Playing with a Trope|played with it]]. One story has the [[Fantastic Four]] never receiving their powers, but becoming entirely successful adventurers anyway.
*** The Fantastic Four ''were'' successful adventurers before the rocket flight, even in canon.
*** And one of the more interesting playarounds in this series is an issue in which [[Doctor Doom|Dr. Doom]] never suffers the accident that injured him and twisted him into a supervillain. Rather, he becomes a ''superhero'', and life actually goes from strength to strength for him. On the other hand, once again, it is his own ego that causes the driving complication of his life.
* ''[[Exiles]]'' can be considered a [[Spiritual Successor]] to the ''What If?'' series; the team would frequently visit realities where one small thing had massively changed how things had happened, and there would always be at least one page explaining what the 'nail' was and its various knock-on effects. Generally, but not always, their job was to repair the reality by setting things back to how they should have been in that reality. This does not always mean changing reality to be like the standard marvel universe but instead to fix things so they are the way that universe was originally supposed to turn out. The general idea was that something caused a number of the different realities to be messed up and the main characters were traveling around fixing them so that they were back on track, even if that track was not the same as the standard marvel universe.
** One slightly silly issue showed the team being the nail for a change, preventing an alien invasion by [[It Makes Sense in Context|buying the last bagel in a bakery store.]]
* The ''[[Ace Attorney]]''
▲== Fan Fiction ==
▲* [[Ace Attorney]] Fanfic [[A Complete Turnabout]] demonstrates how easily this can happen in a universe, which's characters only have [[One Degree of Separation]] between each other. Simply, removing the DL-6 incident from the first game radically alters the history of the entire cast. Among other changes, Phoenix is now an [[Amoral Attorney|amoral prosecutor]], while Edgeworth, never having been taken in by von Karma, is a defense attorney.
* A popular concept is to rewrite the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' books with Harry "having common sense" but they change so much (and his common sense is really having unexplained knowledge of what's happening next) that the actual fic barely counts.
** One of the few that actually manages to succeed is called ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4347535/1/Run_that_by_me_again Run That by Me Again]'', and that's only because it doesn't take itself too seriously, and it's a drabble serious instead of an actual rewriting.
* There is an entire subset of people who like to write [[Alternate History]] stories about our own world.
* The ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' fan-fic
** Hell, ''Buffy'' and ''[[Angel]]'' have plenty of these. From Faith not trying to ignore the fact that she killed a person and therefore not becoming evil (it's a common thing if Fuffy stories) to a different relationship changing things (oddly enough, this tends to be Fuffy or Wuffy), the fandom like this.
* The "Horseshoe Nails" series by Dyce is named after this trope. These River/Jayne friendship fics gradually become romance, and the 'Verse is changed at least somewhat for the better. In this case, the "nail" would be the first fic in the series, ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3272960/1/Two_Gorram_Days Two Gorram Days]''.
* The Nail in the first chapter of ''[[Misfiled Dreams]]'' is Rumisiel putting Ash's and Emily's files back in place. {{spoiler|Ash is an alcoholic cripple and Emily is dead.}}
* ''[[Shinji and
* ''[[All He Ever Wanted]]'' starts off with the UK maintaining the alliance with Japan in the 1920s. [[It Got Worse|Stuff happens.]] But given [[Darker and Edgier|its]] [[Dark Fic|nature]], the POD is just the only ''visible'' difference from history and ''Hetalia'' canon.
* [[Sturgeon's Law|There is actually a]] [[Shipping|GinRan]] [[Bleach
* [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6378285/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Sages_Stone Harry Potter and the Sage's Stone]: The description of the fic ''is'' the
* The ''[[Star Wars]] Infinities'' above are just ''one'' set of possibilities. ''Star Wars'' fandom can go absolutely bonkers with these, as even the ''slightest'' thing being different could have huge, galactic-spanning consequences.
* ''[[Luminosity]]'' is entirely based around this. In a [[Romance Novel]] where the ''point'' is that the plot we see revolves around Bella, what happens if Bella is smart and introspective? Despite the plot being all-but unrecognizable, that is the only change until the story starts.
* ''[[Halo: the Art of War]]'': In the original ''[[Halo]]'' canon, a Covenant probe hitches a ride on a UNSC ship and finds the UNSC stronghold planet Reach, then uses a Slipspace jump to get back to its masters. Master Chief and some of the other SPARTANs were about to go on a classified mission when the Covvies attacked, and most of them were killed. The first game takes place right after the UNSC ''Pillar of Autumn'' has fled the battle and found Halo. This fic imagines what would have happened if the probe had never made it back and the mission was allowed to commence unmolested. All the cool guns, however, are just [[Author Appeal]] and [[Rule of Cool]].
* ''[[Team 8]]''. The indirect nail is Kurenai getting a [[Dark and Troubled Past]] that has (so far) only been alluded to. The more direct one is driven in during the first chapter: Kurenai personally asks for [[Naruto]] Uzumaki for her genin team (sending Kiba over to Team 7 with Sasuke and Sakura), resulting in, among other things, a much more mature, focused and introspective Naruto.
* A popular topic among fans of ''[[The Legend of Spyro]]'' is what if Cynder's egg had been saved by Ignitus instead of Spyro's. What ''isn't'' clear is whether this makes things better or worse off.
* [[Played for Laughs]] in the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' fanfic ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3639659/1/A_Bad_Week_at_the_Wizengamot A Bad Week at the Wizengamot]
* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4162641/1/Rurouni_Kenshii Rurouni Kenshii]'' uses this concept with the nail being that the main character is [[Gender Flip|female instead of male]]. Instead of meeting [[Love Interest|Tomoe]], she meets [[Bratty Half-Pint|Enishi]]. This causes Enishi to go from a crazed [[Big Bad]] to Kenshii's partner. Had the fanfic gotten far enough, chances are the last manga arc either wouldn't have happened or it would have been on a far smaller scale (lacking a mastermind and a budget).
* ''[[Ultimate
* The ''[[Back to The Future]]'' fanfic ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3993367/1/The_Almanac_Chronicles The Almanac Chronicles]'' has several, but one was very significant to the history of the [[Alternate Timeline]]. {{spoiler|President John F. Kennedy is ''not'' assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963, instead being in Sacramento at the time. He is re-elected in 1964 in a landslide, and his supporters campaign to repeal the 22nd Amendment. Kennedy himself does not benefit, but his successor Richard M. Nixon does, serving as President as late as 1984.}}
* The ''[[Pony POV Series]]'' has two
* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4101650/1/Backward_With_Purpose_Part_I_Always_and_Always Backward
** Also, the nail in question was never mentioned but happened sometime in the 7th year of the original timeline, in which for some reason the horcrux hunt took longer than it should have, resulting in a higher casualty rate.
* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4026081/1/The_Wrath_of_the_Half_Blood_Prince The Wrath of the Half Blood Prince]'', a ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' fanfic where [[Mook|Death Eater]] wannabe Mulciber pressed Severus Snape's [[Berserk Button]] by targeting Lily Evans instead of Mary Macdonald for a prank [[Chekhov's Gun|which got a throwaway mention]] during Snape's
* In the ''[[Game of Thrones]]
* The ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' fic ''[https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/troop-of-beasts-dragon-ball.6675/ Troop of Beasts]''{{Dead link}} has Kakarot not hitting his head as the original nail. Things change dramatically as a result.
** Because Kakarot never hit his head, he stayed wicked and bloodthirsty, and was never renamed "Goku".
** Since Bulma didn't have help from Goku, she failed in her first quest for the Dragon Balls. The ones she was able to collect got stolen by the Pilaf Gang, and with no means of getting them back, she had to return home in defeat.
** Roshi never destroyed Fry-Pan Mountain, so the Dragon Ball there remained inaccessible for several more years.
** Krillin, Yamcha, and Roshi didn't compete in the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament. Tien, however, did, and won. News of his success inspired Tao to take him on as an apprentice. However, since he found Tien to be stronger than him, he trained like hell to become stronger and more skilled than Tien, in order to be worthy of being his teacher. He's still pushing himself to stay ahead of his apprentice.
** The Red Ribbon Army made greater headway in their quest for world domination. They also turned Suno and the Ox King into cyborgs.
** Grandpa Gohan died later than he did in canon, and the circumstances of his death (deliberately killed by Kakarot in their last fight) were very different. After he dies, Kakarot leaves his old home and becomes a raider, which leads to him discovering sex and going to war against the Red Ribbon Army.
** Kakarot is very interested in claiming many females and having children with them. He has sex with a lot of different women and girls (not always with their consent) and has a harem of wives and mates. Included in his harem are Colonel Violet, Hasky, Chi-Chi, Mai, Launch, and multiple [[Original Character]]s. Due to all this sleeping around, he has many more children than he did in canon, and not just with his harem.
** After the wish to revive everybody whose deaths were related to the Red Ribbon Army (excepting Red Ribbon Army members), Kakarot and his family settle in territory owned by the Ox King. Since he's not quite so bloodthirsty anymore, Kakarot makes the transition from raider to warlord. Within a year, he's essentially a ''de facto'' king.
** Trunks is born much earlier, and he was fathered by Kakarot, not Vegeta.
** A girl named Bra is still born to the Briefs family, but her parents were Kakarot and Panchy, not Vegeta and Bulma.
** Korin and Roshi form a group known as the Korin Warriors in order to counteract potential threats to the world, including Kakarot.
** Demon King Piccolo is released later, because the Pilaf Gang weren't as frustrated or desperate as they were in canon, so they keep his rice cooker around as a trump card. He ends up being released by accident during a fight between the Pilaf Gang and Kakarot.
** King Piccolo has more children than he did in canon, and more of them survive. However, he never gets his wish for eternal youth.
== [[Film]] ==
Line 115 ⟶ 130:
* The ''[[Back to The Future]]'' film trilogy is a series of nails showing what would have happened if a certain event did or didn't occur:
** In the first movie, Marty McFly's father was a wimp who couldn't stand up to the bully Biff Tannen, but after Marty changed events concerning his father in 1955, he becomes a more confident man who has Biff eating out of his hand, and Marty's family life has also improved for the better.
** In the second movie, Grey's Sports Almanac was the nail that, when old Biff from 2015 gave it young Biff in 1955, caused Hill Valley in 1985 to become Biff's lawless empire where he killed Marty's father and married Marty's mother, adopting her children in the process. With the nail removed, history reverted to how it originally unfolded in the first movie.
** Also in the second movie, an automobile accident that would have happened in the third movie when Marty was racing with his friend Needles was the nail that caused Marty's future history to go down the toilet in 2015, eventually resulting in his being fired from the company he and Needles were working for. When the accident was avoided in the third movie, the YOU'RE FIRED message that Marty's girlfriend/future wife Jennifer Parker had received from the future was erased, meaning that their future could potentially become a better one.
* Lampshaded by the scriptwriters in the Audio Commentary of the first [[Pirates of the Caribbean]] movie. The entire plot is basically kicked off by a ''corset being laced too tightly''.
Line 122 ⟶ 137:
* [[Rules Lawyer]] and borderline [[Jerkass Genie]] Rumpelstiltskin offers [[Shrek]] a [[Deal with the Devil]] in ''Shrek Forever After'': Shrek gets one day as a lawless ogre in exchange for one day from his past. Rumpelstiltskin takes the day Shrek was born, thus creating a world in which Shrek never existed. One of the biggest changes is the fate of Fiona, who without anyone to save her from the tower chose to [[Screw Destiny]] and simply escaped by herself.
== [[Literature]] ==▼
* [[The Draka]]: In the book ''Drakas!'' [[S.M. Stirling]] uses the poem in the introduction. [http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/0671319469/0671319469___1.htm\], [http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/0671319469/0671319469.htm?blurb\], [https://web.archive.org/web/20180821091153/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect], [https://web.archive.org/web/20180618083027/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel%27s_nose], [https://web.archive.org/web/20180820070839/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory], [https://web.archive.org/web/20170304192334/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Want_of_a_Nail_(proverb)], For Want of a Nail, [[Spell My Name with an "S"]]
▲== Literature ==
* [[
* [[The Zeroth Law of Trope Examples|Shakespeare Did It First]] (sort of): "[[Richard III|A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!]]" Although Shakespeare doesn't dwell on it ([[Alternate History]] not having been invented yet), it certainly indicates the thought that England would have been rather different had Richard won the day at [[Wars of the Roses|Bosworth Field]].
* In [[Incarnations of Immortality|Under A Velvet Cloak]], Jolie is attempting to [[Defied Trope|defy this trope.]]
Line 137 ⟶ 151:
* SF writer [[Harry Turtledove]] is ''very'' fond of this concept. A recent short story of his featured in a mid-2007 edition of ''Asimov's Science Fiction'' magazine examined what [[World War II]] politics - up to and including the war itself - may have been like if the press had been less supportive and more suspicious, all started by a single news report basically accusing the administration of ''causing'' the bombing of Pearl Harbor through its own incompetence. However, he's most well known for a series of books featuring an entire alternate history of the United States, where the premise is that a Confederate messenger picked up a cigar he dropped. As a result, one of military history's great strokes of luck - the interception of a Robert E. Lee's complete plans for troop movements, which were wrapped around said cigar - never happened, and the whole tide of [[The American Civil War]] is turned as a result.
** McClellan's most defining state in the Civil War was a massive exaggeration of the forces arrayed against him. Had he not captured the Confederate plans, which detailed the strength of the Confederate forces, he would have believed that he was massively outnumbered. (Prior to finding the orders, he thought that Lee's portion of the army held more soldiers than the entire combined forces of the CSA - in the entire war.)
** This is also a running theme in his
** In Turtledove's ''Atlantis'' series, the [[American Civil War]] is replaced with a massive slave revolt that happens partially because a slave tripped over a loose floorboard.
* In ''[[The End of Eternity]]'' by [[Isaac Asimov]], the time police exploit this professionally and with mathematical precision. The book begins with the main character changing the course of history by moving a small object onto a different shelf.
** Also by Asimov (he liked this trope) is ''[[Spell My Name with an "S"]]'', where two aliens bet as to whether they could avert a nuclear war on Earth with a minor stimulus. Sure enough, getting one person to change how they spell their name works.
*** Context on that last (as it sounds utterly crack fic-ish without some): a sudden desire by a scientist applying for a security-cleared job in nuclear weapons research to spell his name differently makes the US government wonder what he's trying to hide, so they start searching their records for people with the same name as their theory is that he's trying to hide his being related to someone iffy. Their name-search turns up no relatives, but does turn up a Soviet physicist with the same name who has published an obscure theory. The Atomic Energy Commission then realizes that an applied corollary of that theory might possibly allow the Russians to create a workable defense vs. nuclear attack if they ever sufficiently investigate the possibility, at which point the Russians could nuclear first-strike the US with impunity. This panics the US government into sponsoring a crash research project that they would otherwise have ignored and actually inventing a workable defense ''first'', which motivates the Soviets to actually follow up on that line of research themselves, at which point the threat of nuclear war is forever abolished from the planet.
* In the ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[Discworld/Jingo|Jingo]]'', Vimes' Dis-Organiser reports the events of a [[Alternate Universe]] in which Vimes decided keeping the peace in Ankh-Morpork was more important than leaving the city to chase after his suspect. The result was that the entire Watch (except Colon and Nobby) died in battle before Vetinari could complete his plan to stop the war.▼
* ''[[Discworld]]'':
** Also spoofed in ''[[Discworld/The Last Continent|The Last Continent]]'', when the wizards realize that they've been sent back in time, Ponder warns Ridcully of the potential ramifications: "The obvious thing to worry about is killing your own grandfather." To which Ridcully simply replies, "I can't see why I'd do that. I rather liked the chap."▼
▲** In
▲** Also spoofed in ''[[
*** In a different book, Rincewind remarks that killing your own grandfather is the only thing that really appeals to him in this whole time travel business.
*** Ridcully then goes on to point out to Ponder that stepping on insects is fine, since history-as-they-know-it either isn't affected by the deaths, or actively requires them.
** This trope is played with in ''[[
** [[Deconstructed]]/[[Averted Trope]] in ''[[
{{quote|'''Ridcully:''' I suppose we'd have settled down, had children, grandchildren, that sort of thing ...
'''Granny:''' What about the fire?
'''Ridcully:''' What fire?
'''Granny:''' Swept through our house just after we were married. Killed us both. }}
** The [[Trope Namer]] is referenced in ''[[
*** He manages a reverse of this in ''[[
*** Might be a double subversion as the war was ''meant'' to happen, since that was how history of supposed to go. Lu Tze, however, [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|decided differently]]...
** Subverted in ''[[
** In ''[[The Science of Discworld]] III'', the wizards have to time travel around our earth making very minor changes to prevent Darwin from being killed/never being born {{spoiler|by the human-hating Auditors, who ''really'' want us to believe in Intelligent Design, since it eventually results in our extinction...}}
* Two ''[[Nightside]]'' novels by [[Simon R. Green]] steadily establish that {{spoiler|the main character, John Taylor,}} is responsible for ''everything'' that has ever gone wrong in the [[Nightside]], dating back to its very creation.
* ''[[To Say Nothing of the Dog]]'' discusses the trope quite a bit. It has an interesting scenario involving the destruction of Coventry Cathedral. Because of cracking the Enigma Code, British intelligence officials knew in advance that it would be bombed. The novel imagines a scenario where the [[MacGuffin]], a piece of hideous Victorian architecture, disappears during the air raid and an old busybody {{spoiler|correctly}} deduces it was stolen just before the air raid by someone with prior knowledge of the raid, {{spoiler|though she is wrong about who and why}}, and sends a letter about this oddity to the newspaper. When Nazi intelligence officials come across this letter, they deduce {{spoiler|again correctly, albeit for the wrong reason}} that their code has been broken and adopt a new one which the Allies can't crack, and thus win [[World War II]]. The removal of the [[MacGuffin]] means that 'time' has to 'fix' things by eliminating the old busybody. The method? Send the heroes back in time to ensure she is happily married and nowhere near Coventry Cathedral.
Line 176 ⟶ 192:
* In Stephen King's book ''[[Needful Things]]'', Leland Gaunt, the proprietor of the titular shop, exchanges small treasures for ridiculously low prices if the buyer agrees to do him a small, mostly inconsequential favor. The favors inevitably snowball into large-scale disasters, {{spoiler|culminating in the destruction of the entire town.}}
** King also does this with ''11/22/63", where {{spoiler|a man goes back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination and comes back to a very different 2011.}}
* Possibly subverted in Philip Roth's book ''The Plot Against America'', in which the Republican nomination of [http://en.wikipedia.org.uk/Charles_A._Lindbergh Charles A. Lingbergh]{{Dead link}} for President in the 1940 Election keeps the US out of the war a good while longer, and massively increases antisemitism. At the end of the day, however, the Allies only win a year later than they did in real life; it's the damage to the Jewish diaspora in America, and the solidarity of the American people as a whole, that's the major outcome.
* This concept is the driving force behind the events in the book 'A Crack In The Line'. The book is about a boy whose mother is dead and who lives with his father and his mother's older sister. He accidentally finds a way to travel to an alternate timeline, where a female version of himself exists; her mother is still alive and she has no aunt. They discover that their two universes exist because of an event in the past that wasn't suppose to happen, causing the timeline to split off in two. Initially, they believe the divergence happened when their mother got in the accident which in the boy's world, killed her. However, the actual divergence happened when {{spoiler|their [[Extreme Doormat|grandmother]], at the time unmarried to their grandfather, refused to abort the baby that would become their mother's older sister. The girl's timeline was the one created in response to this change, in which the grandmother got the abortion}}.
* In ''The Never War'', the third installment of ''[[The Pendragon Adventure]]'', Bobby goes to Third Earth (Earth in the early 51st Century AD) to find out what would happen if he saved the ''[[Hindenburg]]''. Turns out, if said Zeppelin was saved, London, DC, and New York would've been nuked by the Luftwaffe just before D Day, and things would've gone down ''mountain'' from there.
Line 184 ⟶ 200:
* Mary Lavin's short story "The Story of the Widow's Son" is based around this, examining the different consequences of whether the titular boy did or did not accidentally run over an old hen with his bike.
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==▼
▲== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Frasier]]''. ''Sliding Frasiers'' is an episode based on ''[[Sliding Doors]]'', in which two paths of Frasier's life are examined on whether he chose to wear a suit or a sweater for a speed dating service. {{spoiler|After a week, Frasier's lives meet at the same point, showing no matter which choice he made, he ended up at the same destination.}}
** Another example is when we're shown Martin and Daphne's extraordinarily efficient morning routine on several occasions, but on the last one Daphne puts Martin's cereal in a red bowl instead of a yellow one. The whole routine goes to hell, culminating in Martin accidentally throwing his toast on the floor.
{{quote|'''Martin''': You know, I don't like this red bowl, it's throwing everything off!}}
* ''[[Star Trek: The
** Specifically, the event here is {{spoiler|a woman in the 40s not getting hit by a car and proceeding to lead a massive peace movement that keeps the US out of [[World War Two]] for several years. This giver the Nazis time to develop nuclear weapons and win the war}}.
* ''[[Star Trek: The
** Also "Tapestry": Q shows Picard that by correcting one mistake in his youth, a seemingly beneficial act, he never becomes captain of the ''Enterprise''. (He specified, however, just to assuage Picard's conscience, that he's "not that important" and that no one would die or otherwise be terribly affected by this choice except for himself.)
** The final season episode "Parallels" has Worf jumping from parallel universe to parallel universe, where this trope is in full effect. La Forge is dead in about half of them, Picard is dead in about a quarter of them, Wesley Crusher's a lieutenant in a few of them, and the last gasp effort to set things right is almost disrupted by an ''Enterprise'' where the Borg have pretty much conquered everything. Worf retains his memories of everything, however, which inspires him to try to romance Troi.
*** One of these universes appears to have the Bajorans throwing off the Cardassian occupation and proceeding to become as bad as the Cardassians.
* ''[[Star Trek:
* ''[[Star Trek:
** The ''Voyager'' novel ''Echoes'' occurs when a planet activates a revolutionary new transport system that happens to shift the residents over one universe. When the ''Voyager'' is inadvertently summoned by the energy pulse, it is immune to the shifts. Residents report small changes in the world around them as they're moved. This wouldn't be such a problem, except somewhere down the line, the planet was hit by a meteor. That universe's ''Voyager'' was tasked with trying to save a few billion people. And a few hours after that, a few billion more. And a few hours after that...
** The episode "Non Sequitur" shows what would have happened if Harry Kim was not chosen to be among those who would be in Voyager's crew, with the results also affecting the life of Tom Paris. Of course, the catch is that this is an alternate reality in which Harry Kim still remembers being a crew member of Voyager and has somehow wound up in this reality.
Line 209 ⟶ 224:
'''The Doctor:''' I'll tell you what, then -- don't step on any butterflies. What have butterflies ever done to you? }}
** Also in ''Doctor Who'': this trope is the central premise of the series 4 episode "Turn Left", exploring all the horrible things that would have happened if Donna had taken a different job three years ago. For example, {{spoiler|the Doctor dies, lots of other companions and allies die, London explodes, and the holocaust happens in England.}} Also, {{spoiler|all of reality is unmade. But this being Doctor Who, that could have happened, anyway.}}
** Previously done in "Father's Day" when Rose saves her father from being killed by a hit-and-run driver. In keeping with the combination of
*** However, this is explained in that at that moment, there were a pair of Doctors and a pair of Roses, making it, "...a vulnerable point."
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'''s Wishverse is the result of this trope combined with a subversion of [[Wonderful Life]]. Because Buffy never came to Sunnydale, Giles is no longer a watcher, Willow (now a skanky [[Lesbian Vampire]]) and Xander were turned into vampires, Angel became a prisoner implied to be tortured and raped for the fun of the vamps, and The Master left his underground prison, wreaking merry havoc on the town. Buffy also got herself a scar and an unrefreshing new attitude. The Wishverse debuted in "The Wish", and our favorite [[Lesbian Vampire]] crossed over into the [[Buffy Verse]] in "Doppelgangland" for even more fun.
** Although this may seem a bit less dramatic as the trope would imply. Considering that Buffy was the one to kill the Master and keep the Hellmouth in check, it's not a dramatic leap in logic for her lack of presence having disastrous consequences, unlike a kingdom falling for want of a nail.
*** We actually ''see'' the nail in the course of the show. The Master would have escaped in the pilot episode if Buffy hadn't stopped the Harvest, and the original episode establishes quite firmly that Buffy's presence was key to stopping it. (The only other available white hat who'd have had a chance of taking out the Vessel in a fight would have been Angel, and he not only avoided the canon Harvest but wouldn't even have been in Sunnydale at that time if he hadn't followed Buffy there.)
** This happens again in the ''[[Angel]]'' episode "Birthday", where Cordelia turning her head the other way at a party results in a world where Cordelia has become a famous TV star instead of joining up with Angel, but Wesley's lost his arm and Angel, having to take the visions in place of her, has lost his sanity without her presence.
*** Oddly enough, this alternate-Angelverse implies that Angel and Doyle kissed. No, really.
*** To clarify, before {{spoiler|he died}}, Doyle kissed Cordelia to give her his vision power. However, since Cordelia never joined the group, Angel had to receive the visions instead, Wesley (the only other permanent member of the group in season 1) not being around at the time. Hence...
* The ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' two-parter "Moebius" shows how, by meddling with time, SG-1 created an alternate timeline in which the Stargate was never found in Giza, and how it affected (or, rather, ruined) their
** The ''SG-1'' direct-to-DVD movie ''Continuum'' had a similar setup (except Ba'al caused it intentionally, and the Stargate was found but promptly lost again), with plenty of resulting changes. Unusually, some of it was quite
** The Stargate was lost when the ship carrying it across the ocean to America was lost with all hands on board. One effect of one of those people dying was made explicit in the film: {{spoiler|the captain was Mitchell's [[Identical Grandfather]], and he [[Grandfather Paradox|hadn't had kids yet]].}}
* The ''[[Scrubs]]'' episode "My Butterfly", where two possible days are shown based on whether the eponymous butterfly lands on a woman's cleavage or a fat guy's... well, cleavage. Everything that goes wrong in the first version goes right in the second, {{spoiler|except for one patient, who dies at the end of both.}}
Line 229 ⟶ 245:
** Another episode had the sisters [[Mental Time Travel]] to the future, when the knowledge of the supernatural is made public, and witches are being hunted and [[Burn the Witch|burned]]. Why? Because one of them used a spell on a guy they didn't like, who proceeds to have a burning hate for all witches. When they go back to the present, they undo the event, although we're not shown that future again.
* In the Season 2 ''[[Supernatural]]'' episode "What Is and What Shall Never Be," like in the ''[[Buffy]]'' example above, this trope combines with a subverted [[Wonderful Life]] so that Dean wishes that the fire that killed Sam and Dean's mother never happened. [[Sacrificial Lamb|She and Sam's girlfriend, Jessica]], are still alive, but Dean's a horrible asshole and he and Sam have a terrible relationship, and the [[Wonderful Life]] part comes in when Dean finds out that {{spoiler|every person he, Sam, and/or their father had saved while hunting had died}}. And then {{spoiler|it turns out to be [[All Just a Dream]] caused by a djinn}}.
** In Season 6 an angel goes back in time and saves the Titanic from sinking. This resulted in thousands more people being alive today and many changes but the brothers are immune to this effect for the most part and their own lives are not significantly changed.
* In season 6 of ''[[Lost]]'', the successful detonation of a bomb on the island in 1977 causes an alternate timeline where the plane never crashed; smaller details (also probably resulting from the bomb detonation) include Hurley having nothing but good luck and some people, such as Shannon, not being on the plane.
** Now it appears that the bomb didn't cause it, since certain changes (such as Ben and Roger leaving the Island) may have occurred earlier. So we know that there's a nail wanting, but not what the nail ''is''.
Line 247 ⟶ 263:
* ''[[Head of the Class]]'' discussed this when Mr. Moore brought up how the world (specifically America and Cuba) would be different if [[Fidel Castro]] was a better baseball player, and went pro instead of becoming President of Cuba. Alan thought it silly, and compared it to [[Ronald Reagan]] staying an actor instead of going into politics, which Mr. Moore thought was an excellent point.
* [[Fringe]]: In "The Plateau," a man with artificially increased intelligence uses this concept to kill people. For example, putting a pen on top of a mailbox causes a chain of events that leads to a woman getting run over by a bus.
** A later episode, "The Firefly," is pretty much an analysis of this trope.
* The entire ''[[Community]]'' episode [[Community/Recap/S3
* The documentary series ''Seconds Before Disaster'' is centered on this trope and lampshades this a lot.
{{quote|'''Narrator''': "A chain of critical events that led to the X disaster..."}}
** ''Air Crash Investigation'' also has episodes that explain about air crashes caused by this trope. See "Real Life".
Line 256 ⟶ 272:
'''Jones''': Hence the expression, "Keep your hair on." }}
== [[Music]] ==▼
▲== Music ==
* The verses to "It's All Who You Know" by the Newsboys are two scenarios of this trope.
** In the first verse, a slip-up in an actor's facelift leads to the failure of the show that would have saved a TV network.
Line 272 ⟶ 287:
* The video for "Has It Come To This?" by The Streets features a split-screen of two possible [[A Day in The Life|day-in-the-life situations]] of Mike Skinner.
* "The Want of a Nail" by Todd Rundgren.
* The whole point of [[Jay
* [[Bowling for Soup]]'s "Almost"'s verses each have chain of events that might have happened, if not for the first event in the chain only "almost" happening:
** Verse 1: "I almost got drunk at school at 14 / and I almost made out with the Homecoming Queen / who almost went on to be Miss Texas / but lost to a slut with much bigger [[Painful Rhyme|breastes]] / who almost dropped out to move to L.A. / and was almost famous for almost a day"
Line 286 ⟶ 301:
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* The current default setting for ''[[GURPS]]'' is based on mixing this idea with [[The Multiverse]] to produce an infinite number of worlds. There's at least one canon parody of the concept with the world "Enigma" in which the only difference is the band [[The Clash]] never formed (and then <s>the planet</s> [[Life After People|all humans on the planet disappeared without a trace in 1982]]).
* During [[Magic: The Gathering]]'s ''Time Spiral'' block, the middle set (representing the present) featured "alternate universe" versions of certain cards, primarily reprinting older cards into other colors that would best represent them if various mechanics hadn't been assigned as they were. Keeping in the spirit of "What if?", the flavor text on a good portion of the cards give quick looks at an entire subplot that revolved around what would've happened if [[Catgirl|Mirri]] had slain [[Our Angels Are Different|Selenia]] before Crovax had a chance to, thus fulfilling the terms of a family curse, [[Our Vampires Are Different|turning her into a vampire instead of him.]]
* In a nice scenario for a Dr Who style RPG the player's TARDIS comes to rest in the car park of a film studio. This causes John Wayne to have to find another spot so he is late and angry for his meeting to discuss playing Genghis Khan. Instead Ronald Reagan gets the role and cancer inducing radiation dose. President Wayne's foreign policy isn't a great success either.
** John Wayne was a very heavy smoker throughout his life (at one point up to ''six packs'' of cigarettes a day!) and in 1964 nearly died of lung cancer (one lung was removed and The Duke needed supplemental oxygen for the rest of his life). Any contamination he might have received from the set of ''The Conquerer'' was likely just a [[Wafer-Thin Mint]] given what he'd already done to himself.
*** True in John Wayne's case, but the lung cancer rate among the other cast members and crew on the set of the ''Conqueror'' was still significantly above average due to their own radiation exposure. Reagan's dying of lung cancer because he was on set is still an entirely plausible outcome, even if Wayne's survival is not.
== [[Video Games]] ==▼
▲== Video Games ==
* The ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'' games deal with the attempts of the immortal vampire Kain to change his fate and that of the world of Nosgoth, which are tied. Frequent use of time travel is made by Kain, Raziel, and Mobius the Timestreamer to advance their own agendas. For example: Mobius traveled back in time in the first chapter of the series "[[Blood Omen]]" and corrupted the King William the Just, turning him into The Nemesis, who threatened to conquer all of Nosgoth in the future. Kain inadvertently travels back to this time period, where he kills William the Just before he manages to become The Nemesis. When he returns to the present, Kain realizes that by killing William the Just he has sparked a genocide against vampires that left him the last in all of Nosgoth.
* One of the drama CDs based on ''[[Guilty Gear]]'' revolves around an [[Alternate Universe]] in which the war lasted ten years longer because Ky Kiske was killed in the penultimate battle, and in which the Gears would have ''won'' if I-No hadn't [[Temporal Paradox|gone back in time]] to rescue him.
Line 307 ⟶ 322:
* The ''[[Fallout]]'' series revolves around this trope: slight changes in the direction of politics and technology after the end of WWII resulted in a completely different world just a few decades after, and ended turning the world into an apocalyptic wasteland.
** Indeed, in Fallout 2 the player can go through the time-portal from The City on the Edge of Forever from the original Star Trek. The player ends up in (spoilers) Vault 13. If he taps a computer, it sets up a water chip to fail, which will end up causing...
* The entire premise behind ''[[Command
** And then happens again in ''Red Alert 3''. Apparently, no one thought that {{spoiler|killing Einstein would result in no nukes being invented}}.
* Discussed in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]] A's Portable: The Battle of Aces'', where it is suggested that Fate would have turned out like the [[Ax Crazy]] [[The Berserker|Berserker]] Material-L if she had never met Nanoha or the others. Nanoha disagrees with this suggestion though, noting that Fate is a stronger person than that, and that with Arf, she is not truly alone.
Line 314 ⟶ 329:
** The City Elf is either murdered by Bann Vaughn or dies in the ensuing riots in the alienage if Duncan is not there to lend him (or Soris, if the PC is female) weapons and once again invoke right of conscription to save the PC from arrest afterwards.
** The Dalish Elf dies of darkspawn taint or becomes a Shriek if Duncan is not present to save the PC by making them a Warden.
** The Dwarven Nobles, without the Wardens to chance upon, would have eventually died in the Deep Roads after being exiled.
** The Mage PC is one of two characters with a chance of surviving the events of his or her origin without Duncan's assictance (by collaborating with First Enchanter Irving)--only to most likely fall prey to the event that troubles the Circle after Ostagar.
** The Human Noble ''can'' survive without Duncan's
*** The castle is still surrounded by enemy soldiers; it's implied that without Duncan's assistance, the Human Noble would not have been able to get past them. Which makes sense - while the Human Noble is a talented fighter even at this point he's not experienced at stealth, but Duncan is both a veteran Grey Warden (who function often in a commando role vs. the darkspawn) as well as an experienced rogue.
** The player-controlled Grey Warden serves as the nail in the DLC quest Darkspawn Chronicles, where, besides having the player control the darkspawn forces at the battle of Denerim, it shows to some extent [http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Darkspawn_Chronicles what would have happened if the Grey Warden candidate from any of the origins never survived the joining ritual].
* Nails eventually decide which of the three routes you take in the opening of ''[[Fate/stay night|Fate Stay Night]]''. The best example is probably the choice leading to "Unlimited Blade Works": If Shirou recalls Saber before she slashes Archer, Archer is left unwounded and capable of participating in the Grail War at full strength. This in turn boosts Rin's position in the war, making her a competitor to Shirou instead of someone forced to rely on him as an ally (and also makes Ilya not notice Shirou). Thus, "Fate" and "Heaven's Feel" get locked out because everything begins snowballing from that decision {{spoiler|and Archer now being in an ideal position to put his true agenda in motion}}. The difference between "Fate" and "Heaven's Feel", meanwhile, is decided by several nails during the opening that {{spoiler|decide if Sakura's mental barriers are maintained or fall because Shirou is paying attention to her, making her open to manipulation from Zouken.}}
Line 323 ⟶ 339:
* ''[[Resident Evil 2]]'' begins this way for the main characters: {{spoiler|whichever end of the car Leon wrecks into the pole determines which events Leon and Claire will experience respectively and how they transpire (including which one of them encounters the Tyrant).}}
* ''[[Gundam vs. Series|Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam vs Zeta Gundam]]'' has several [[What If]] storylines, but the one that best fits this trope is the Project Zeta story, where Garma Zabi surviving his fate from [[Mobile Suit Gundam|the original series]], which leads to other characters killed by Amuro and the Gundam surviving, and eventually to [[The Empire|Zeon]] winning the One Year War. But then it veers sharply into [[In Spite of a Nail]], as the rest of the storyline is just ''First Gundam'''s events played out with older characters and ''[[Zeta Gundam]]''-era [[Humongous Mecha|mecha]], even when several of those events already occurred even in the altered timeline.
** There are a couple of other noteworthy alternate story paths; each of the three big heroes (Kamille, Amuro, and Char) has a storyline where they end up with [[A Nazi by Any Other Name|the Titans]], with varying degrees of believability.<ref>For Kamille, [[La Résistance|the AEUG]] caused the deaths of his parents so he wants revenge; Amuro and Lalah (who is still alive here) joined the Newtype labs, which were later absorbed by the Titans; Char's plot ties into Project Zeta, as he joins the Titans as Quattro Bajeena after he kills Garma</ref>
* In the [[Fire Emblem Jugdral]] timeline, the [[Big Bad]] has a [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]] named the Dark Warlords. Well, in the second game of said saga (''Thracia 776''), some of the Warlords are people ''from your own chara roster'', who end up on the enemy side under different circumstances: getting killed in battle, not being recruited, or not being saved when they catch the [[Distress Ball]]. These charas are: {{spoiler|Tanya's father Dagdar, Mareeta's father Galzus, the thief Lifis, Manfloy's granddaughter Sara, and [[Team Mom]] Evayle.}}
* In ''[[Baldur's Gate|Throne of Baal]]'', the Solar reveals that Sarevok, the first [[Big Bad]] of the series, was also one of the Bhaalspawn children about to be sacrificed at the temple where Gorion found and rescued you. Gorion only had the opportunity to save one child, and he chose you instead of Sarevok.
* In ''[[Mortal Kombat 3]]'', Sub-Zero escapes from the Lin Kuei, and his friend Smoke is turned into a cybernetic ninja in his stead. However, ''[[Mortal Kombat 9]]'' starts when the future Raiden (following the conclusion of ''[[Mortal Kombat Armageddon]]'') sends a message to his past self warning him about the apocalypse that will occur. One of the changes that occurs as a result of Raiden's tampering with the past is that Sub-Zero becomes a cyborg instead of Smoke.
** Additionally, Raiden's slaying of {{spoiler|Motaro}} in the reboot causes Shao Kahn to {{spoiler|sacrifice Shang Tsung (one of the series' recurring villains) to power up Sindel (who in the prior timeline, made a [[Heel Face Turn]]). Using this power, she easily kills a majority of the heroes, finally requiring a heroic sacrifice by Nightwolf to kill her.}}
* Metaphorically speaking, the [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Radiant Historia]]'' spends much of his time pulling out
* {{spoiler|The rope}} in ''[[Cave Story]]''. It's the single most important key to stop {{spoiler|the destruction of everything in the island, including a large percentage of the cast}} and get the happy ending. [[Guide Dang It|And it's incredibly easy to miss]]. If you don't get it, expect some rough times in the plot.
* In the NES game ''[[Body Harvest]]'', the protagonist's goal is to undo the extinction of humanity at the hands of alien bug monsters, and to do so, must travel to four different time periods (each a different level of the game) to destroy four different Nails, as avoiding each Nail creates another that must be dealt with.
== [[Web Comics]] ==▼
▲== Web Comics ==
* ''[[Erfworld]]'' Book 1 starts with this trope. The narrated opening scene shows the world's creators dropping one extra gem into a [[You Require More Vespene Gas|resource spot]], which pays for an extra squad of units to go to field against Gobwin Knob's army, which is just enough to tip the balances in a heated battle, which means that Gobwin Knob's chief warlord gets an arrow between the eyes, which means that Gobwin Knob needs a new chief warlord before [[The Alliance]] shows up on their doorstep, which means that Wanda Firebaugh's bad day is about to get a lot worse. {{spoiler|And then [[A Protagonist Shall Lead Them|Parson]] blows up a volcano.}} Judging from the way the story is going, this was just the start.
* In a time-travel example: the ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' time-travel plotline in Book 6 invokes this trope, but isn't itself an example.
* In ''[[8-Bit Theater
* Parodied [http://chainsawsuit.com/2010/08/26/lazy-dog/ here] on ''Chainsawsuit''.
* ''[[Homestuck]]'' has innumerable offshoot timelines which all create elements necessary for the existence of the primary timeline. In one of those offshoot timelines, Karkat never runs the Mobius Double Reacharound virus. {{spoiler|Without the virus (or some effect the virus had, such as possibly the deaths of the lusii), [[Monster Clown|Gamzee]] does his [[From Nobody to Nightmare]] transformation much earlier than he was supposed to, and succeeds in murdering all of the trolls minus Aradia.}}
Line 342 ⟶ 358:
* [http://www.viruscomix.com/page556.html This] [[Subnormality]] strip. If you look closely enough, the last panel nearly spells out this trope.
== [[Web Original]] ==▼
▲== Web Original ==
* ''[[Decades of Darkness]]'' has president [[Thomas Jefferson]] dying of a heart attack. His bumbling successor [[James Madison]] manages to anger the New England states enough so they leave the union and defend themselves successfully in a war, splitting the USA forever. The slave states get the majority and transform the rest into an expansionist slave-holding empire.
* ''[[Look to the West]]''`s very different world ([[Steampunk]] revolutionary France, a divided India, French Australia, loyalist America) all stems from George II tripping on the carpet at his coronation in 1727.
* ''[[
* The 4chan imageboard /co/ had a thread that speculated what would happen if Bruce Wayne's parents never died. The result? Bruce and a certain fellow named "[[The Joker|Jack Napier]]" end up becoming best friends, Gotham City goes through a golden age, and [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|the readers cried manly tears]].
** 4chan's /tg/ board does this as well, some of the more recent ones, the crusades are won in the third crusade, the slew of changes involve a massive Kingdom of Jerusalem, The Library of Baghdad still stands, the reconquista never happened to its fullest extent, and the rising heresies move the reformation in a very different direction (Cathars, Flagellants and Waldensians rather than Anglicans, Calvinists, and Lutherans.) And these are the most normal things to come from it.
Line 354 ⟶ 369:
* [[1983: Doomsday]] starts off with [[wikipedia:Stanislav Petrov|a certain Soviet Air Defense forces officer]] being assigned to a different bunker in September 1983. The officer who takes his place mistakes a false alarm for an American nuclear attack, leading to [[World War III]].
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[Star Trek: The
* ''[[Futurama]]'''s "The Farnsworth Parabox," which features a universe "exactly like ours" except for the fact that the results of all coin tosses (or at least those in the recent past) are reversed. (According to the DVD commentary, it's a probability-
** In the same episode, other parallel universes are visited, including a universe where everyone lack eyes, where their heads are bobble-heads, where everybody is a robot, a Roman Empire themed universe (complete with Roman numerals calculus) and a Hippie universe... However there do seem to be universes without the main characters, such as an octopus universe, a universe filled only with women and a completely frozen universe.
** In "All The President's Heads", the gang travels back in time to [[The American Revolution]] to stop Prof. Farnsworth's ancestor David, who betrayed the Revolutionaries by counterfeiting money. After they stop David, Fry burns the counterfeit bills with a lantern he found in a church, which turned out to be one of the lamps used to signal the coming of the British (one if by land, two if by sea). Because of this, the British win the war and the gang come back to an America that's still under British rule.
* Most of Timmy's time traveling adventures in ''[[The Fairly
** Averted. Cosmo was the one who originally caused Crocker to become the way he was. Timmy just inadvertently caused it again except things also played out so Crocker now has better Fairy Hunting tech.
** Not to mention the episode where he wishes he was never born. Tuns out his gender is a nail as well - his parents had a girl instead, and the life of everyone Timmy knows is better for it.
Line 372 ⟶ 387:
*** Though there is still the question of if BW Megs absorbs G1 Megs Spark meaning in the "restored" timeline G1!Megatron is a sparkless shell.
** He isn't. In a scene cut from the last episode, G1 Megatron is shown with his spark being restored to him. Presumably this was ''how'' he learned of the later technology that made the entire concept possible, resulting in a [[Stable Time Loop]].
* ''[[Freakazoid!]]!'' inverts this. The titular hero ends up at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and stops the Japanese from invading. When he comes back to the present, the world seems to be a better place: Sharon Stone can act, [[Rush Limbaugh]]'s a "bleeding-heart liberal", EuroDisney is booming, cold fusion works, and there are no Chevy Chase movies. Just one catch: {{spoiler|[[Pinky and The Brain|the Brain]] is President.}}
** Considering he likely had a hand in a fair amount of it, how is that a catch?
* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' inverts it as well by having Homer's guardian angel [[Hogan's Heroes|Werner Klemperer]] show Homer what his life would have been like had he not married Marge. In the alternate timeline, Homer is rich and happily married to a beautiful woman, while Marge is the President, enjoying both success and popularity. Needless to say, this was not a successful trip for the guardian angel.
Line 384 ⟶ 399:
* A sketch in ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' that shows what would happen if jerks got time machine. It ends with one jerk stopping Nazism from ever getting started by humiliating Hitler, thus becoming a Hero with a Time Machine
** A parody of [[Popeye]] where an angel shows Whimpy what would have happen if he did not exist when he attempts suicide. Popeye and Brutus are friends, Olive has huge breasts, Goon gains a [[PHD]], there is no war and all hamburgers are free. The angel, seeing that he failed, pushes Whimpy off the bridge.
* In ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', as realized in the episode "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", [[Boisterous Bruiser|Rainbow Dash's]] first Sonic Rainboom actually indirectly caused all the rest of the Mane Six to get their own cutie marks
* In the ''Rated A for Awesome'' episode "Thera's Date With Destiny" Noam's new future-predicting invention shows that Thera will be going to prom with [[The Bully|Chet]]. They try to change the outcome, but each attempt either has them start dating even sooner or she goes to prom with someone else she doesn't want to go with. That is until the last vision, which doesn't show her date's face, but it's hinted to be Noam. Each vision after the first also shows her with a different hairstyle.
* Happens in the ''[[Totally Spies!]]'' episode "Futureshock!". Mandy [[Literal Metaphor| breaks a nail]] during cheerleading practice, and believes this is too much of a flaw to be a cheerleader. She decides to take up broadcasting class (because a news anchor can be popular without having to show her hands) takes a liking to it, becomes good at it, and by discovering the power of the press, becomes [[Drunk with Power]], growing up to be a dictator in a [[Bad Future]].
== [[Real Life]] ==
* Despite having multiple redundant systems and some of the most stringent inspection and safety standards in the world, almost all airline crashes can be distilled down to this trope.
** United Flight 232 in 1989 crashed because of a microscopic, metal-fatigue induced, hair-line crack in the compressor fan of its #2 engine. This crack caused the compressor fan to fail catastrophically, causing shrapnel to sever ALL THREE hydraulic system lines, causing complete loss of flight controls, causing the plane to crash and 111 passengers to lose their lives.
*** All three hydraulic lines ran through the same narrow area, though. Three lines, but a single point of failure.
** [[wikipedia:
** The proper way to look at it is that not despite, but ''because'' of stringent inspection and safety standards all airline crashes come down to this trope. Single isolated failures and mistakes have mostly been eliminated as cause of accidents.
* The [[wikipedia:Deepwater Horizon oil spill|Deepwater Horizon oil spill]] of 2010 could have easily been averted if not for a ''single dead battery'' in the emergency shut-off valve.
Line 398 ⟶ 414:
** Said ship was the [[wikipedia:SS Californian|SS Californian]].
** And, the criticism of the press of the world notwithstanding, it was too small and too slow to have been of much good anyway. Its few lifeboats could have been used to pick up survivors struggling in the water...but then again, many of ''Titanic'''s boats were half-full and still did not pick up survivors.
* The Norman Conquest of England had the weather as one of its nails. William of Normandy's invasion fleet was assembled and ready to launch by August of 1066, but was delayed by unfavorable winds until late September. Between August and September the Saxon king Harold Godwinson faced two crises that depleted his forces: the term of his conscripted troops (who were mostly farmers and needed to tend to their harvests) came to an end, and Harald Hardrada of Norway invaded England from the North. By the time William's fleet reached England, Harold Godwinson's army had been reduced to a fraction of its former strength. Had the weather cooperated and William had been able to launch his fleet earlier, he would have faced Harold at full strength. Even with Harold's forces depleted, William faced stiff opposition and his troops were often outnumbered on the battlefield. Facing a full-strength Saxon army, William would likely have been defeated, and the Norman Conquest would never have taken place.
* Although it was just the catalyst, the murder of Franz Ferdinand (Archduke of Austria-Hungary) by a Bosnian Serb nationalist led to [[World War
** It's highly doubtful that the Archduke's life could have been saved even if his staffers and doctors had been able to get his tunic off immediately. The bullet had crashed through his neck, severing his jugular vein, damaging his trachea, and lodging in the spine. In point of fact, it wasn't removed during the autopsy because doing so could have damaged blood vessels that needed to be kept intact for the process of embalming the body (which suggests that even if surgery could have been performed, it wouldn't have been any use to remove the bullet). Duchess Sophie, the Archduke's wife, couldn't have been saved in any case; her fatal bullet severed the main artery and vein in her lower abdomen, causing death within several minutes from massive internal bleeding.
** It's almost as if [[Epileptic Trees|there were a bunch of time travelers trying to interfere with this event and prevent WWII]]...
Line 407 ⟶ 423:
*** Adding insult to injury, the Archduke, at least as it seems, wore a primitive form of bulletproof vest (multiple layers of tightly-woven silk on a metal wire frame) under his uniform, perfectly able to withstand the weak [[wikipedia:380 ACP|.380 ACP bullet]]. To no avail, as the bullet struck him in the neck, above the vest, flying downwards.
*** Duchess Sophie's (Franz Ferdinand's wife) death was a completely avoidable tragedy. The Archduke actually gave instructions for her to be taken back to the hotel where they were staying while he drove on to see the people who had been wounded in the bomb attack, but she refused to leave her husband's side as long as he chose to risk himself in public. Gavrilo Princip himself testified at his trial that he had never intended to shoot the Duchess; in fact, he wasn't even looking to see where he was aiming when he fired the fatal shot (which was intended either for the Archduke or for General Potoriek, the military governor of Bosnia).
** Counter to this, the "Mad Monk" Rasputin wielded great influence with the Tsar at the time, and had both the desire (as explained in his writings) and the means to persuade him not to join in the growing conflict (on the side of Serbia, which was facing reprisals from Austro-Hungary). But Rasputin was not able to hurry to the Tsar's side because he was recovering from being stabbed by another monk, a rival for influence in the tiny monastic sect that they belonged to. If Russia hadn't entered WWI due to Rasputin's intervention... at the very least, Russia wouldn't have destroyed its economy trying to fight the war, the Tsar wouldn't have abdicated, and there would have been no Bolshevik Revolution. Added to that, however, [[Imperial Germany]] wouldn't have been able to declare war on Russia in support of Austria-Hungary, leaving Great Britain with little reason to get involved either. With major players sitting it out, the whole thing could have finished up as Austria-Hungary stomping on Serbia for a bit, with the rest of Europe issuing firmly-worded declarations.
*** On the other hand though, this might just be an in-spite-of-a-nail situation; we can't say for sure one way or the other of course, since we can only see one reality at a time. The entangling alliances throughout Europe existed long before Ferdinand's driver took a wrong turn. So did the anti-monarchist sentiment in Russia. Given the conditions as of 1900, at least one devastating war in Europe and/or a communist revolution seemed almost inevitable.
**** Inevitable is a good way to put it, but it could have easily been very different.
***** The nations who participated had been expecting ''something'' to start a major war years before the assassination.
****** Several crises in the decade or so previous to June 28, 1914 came very close to touching off a major European war: e.g., the Dogger Bank Incident, Fashoda, the Moroccan crisis of 1911, the original Austrian annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908. In those years, Europe was a powderkeg just waiting for the proper spark.
***** Without Germany declaring war on Russia, the chances of a Bolshevik revolution would be slim: Lenin was stuck in Switzerland (IIRC) prior to the war and got carried to Russia ([[Crazy Prepared|in a sealed train lest he escape into Germany]]) as a bid to [[Gone Horribly Right|force the Romanovs to withdraw from the war]]. And without the Bolsheviks, the Jews and Communists never would've been mixed in popular thought, meaning the latter's talk of [[Older Than They Think|exterminating millions of people]] couldn't've been used to fuel the antisemitism the Nazis used to rise to
***** Naturally, it's hard to say for certain, but the Second World War saw four of five German casualties fighting the Soviet
** During the battle of Marcoing, a wounded German soldier walked into Pvt. Henry Tandey's line of fire, but he couldn't bring himself to shoot the man, so he let him go. That soldier was later found out to be [[Adolf Hitler]].
** Similarly the American Revolution would have mostly likely failed if not for the honor of a British soldier who had General George Washington in his sights and did not fire because it would have meant shooting the general in the back.
Line 430 ⟶ 446:
* In one of Lewis Lovhaug's videos, he explains because of paranoia over the Colombine school shootings, he was suspended from school over something he said. His parents blamed the school and allowed him to treat his suspension as a vacation rather than a punishment, so he got an opportunity to watch ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' (figuring that if he was going to heckle his brother over it, he should know if it was worth mocking). This led him to becoming a fan of anime and eventually creating ''[[Atop the Fourth Wall]]'' - without the suspension "Linkara" wouldn't exist!
* On September 26, 1983, a Soviet early warning station detected [[Oh Crap|5 inbound]] [[Nuke'Em|ICBMs]]. Colonel Stanislav Petrov, the man in charge of the station, decided it was a false alarm and did not report it to his superiors. Had someone else been in charge, and had they ''not'' realized it was a false alarm, [[World War III|well]]...
** Perhaps a little comfort can be found in the fact that anyone with even general knowledge of nuclear war (such as a person in charge of a station dedicated to detecting missile launches) would understand that no one would launch just five ICBM's as a first strike
***James Dunnigan in one book somewhere or other speculated that instead of doing that they might just do one or two at a time as [[Proof I Am Not Bluffing]] - kind of like a gigantic version of an Icelandic feud from the sagas that is. However such an event would only be likely at a time when there was already so much of a crises that someone might be tempted to rock the boat in that fashion. When America and Russia were doing no more than doing a normal [[Death Glare]] at each other it was in everyone's interest to be better safe then dead. Especially as once it does come there is really nothing more to be gained but revenge. So yeah.
* Similarly, in 1979, at the American NORAD aerospace warning control center, a technician stuck a training tape depicting a full nuclear exchange with the Soviets into the main computer ''without remembering to hit the training button''. As a result, NORAD interpreted [[World War III]] from ''within its own computers''. Within a few minutes, American aircraft were loaded with nuclear weapons and launched, and missiles were prepared for a full retaliatory strike. For want a switch, the world might have been lost?
* Also a [[Professional Wrestling]] example, but since it was a major part of real life, it belongs better here. At a live event at Madison Square Garden in May 1996, [[The Kliq]] ([[Triple H]], [[Shawn Michaels]], [[Kevin Nash]], and [[Scott Hall]]) all hugged each other in front of the audience in what became known as the "Curtain Call". While it was not a problem for Michaels and Hall to hug (as both were faces), when Triple H and Nash joined in the hug, this scandalized the WWF (because both were heels), and this was seen as breaking the suspension of disbelief. While Michaels was not reprimanded because he was the WWF Champion, and Nash and Hall were leaving to go to rival WCW, this left Triple H as the sole member to take the blame. He was demoted from being a championship contender to the mid-card, and while originally booked to be in the finals at that year's ''King of the Ring'', the MSG incident prevented that. Who took his place, and the push that went with it? Why, none other than [[Stone Cold Steve Austin]], then a former WCW midcarder and current{{when}} WWF midcarder, who went on to win the KOTR, jumpstart the [[Attitude Era]], and help the WWF win over WCW in the [[Monday Night Wars]]. If the MSG incident had never taken place, then who knows what the state of the professional wrestling business would be today?
* The butterfly effect works like this, except vastly more extreme, and with worse story-telling. If you move one atom a Planck length to the side, it will move the atom it hits slightly more, growing exponentially until the weather patterns change completely. In addition, brownian motion (the motion of atoms bouncing off of each other) will change very quickly, which will change which sperm gets to the egg in every conception, meaning that every person who is born from then on will be different.
** Except of course it ''doesn't'' work like that, because random thermal motion at the molecular level will tend to ''damp the subatomic variations out'', NOT amplify them. The system has a certain amount of negative feedback built in. Worse story-telling indeed!! ([[E. E. "Doc" Smith]]'s [[Lensmen]] series actually lampshades this in ''First Lensman'' - the Arisians have long been aware that random, statistical variations occur on the microscopic level and predictable mechanistic ones on the macro, and their ability to predict the future (largely successful in-universe) depends on their competence to know where the interface of these is and what's happening there. Even though they're almost Godlike, they admit they are not sufficiently competent to solve the problem fully.)
** Also, while a butterfly can easily change the weather, it can do little against the climate. A butterfly won't cause a hurricane in an area that doesn't get hurricanes.
* An urban legend tells of a young man out to make his fortune in the city. He applies for a job in a brothel as a bookkeeper, but is turned away when he reveals that he can't read or write. The madam takes pity on him though, and gives him a couple of apples for his lunch. But instead of eating then, he sells them. He then manages to get a good deal on some more apples, sell those at a profit, and repeats the process... until eventually he owns his own fruit stand, then his own grocery store, then finally his own produce company. In a few years he's the biggest produce magnate in the country and is voted Businessman of the Year. When interviewed on the national news, the interviewer is shocked to discover that the man is ''still'' illiterate. The interviewer asks him if he did all that without being able to read or write, what could he have accomplished if he was literate? The man considers the question for a moment, then cheerfully responds "Well, I guess I would've been a bookkeeper in a whorehouse!"
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Sociology Tropes]]
[[Category:Settings]]
Line 447 ⟶ 464:
[[Category:Older Than Print]]
[[Category:Alternate History Tropes]]
[[Category:
| |||