It's a Small World After All: Difference between revisions

** In ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'', when Kirk ''just happens'' to run into {{spoiler|Spock Prime}} while marooned on Delta Vega. The latter was sent to a location where they could observe a certain unexpected astronomical event, while the former was, presumably, dropped within walking distance (or maybe [[Death World|getting eaten distance]]) of a Starfleet base, with no reason whatsoever for the two locations to be anywhere near each other—apart from the [[Theory of Narrative Causality]], of course. Lampshaded in the novel adaptation.

* In ''[[Enemy Mine (film)|Enemy Mine]]'' the Human and the Drac both manage to not only crash on the same planet, but within ''walking distance'' of each others spaceships.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* In ''[[The Windup Girl]]'' by [[Paolo Bacigalupi]], Emiko is running for her life and looks certain to be killed when Anderson Lake ''just happens to be'' riding past in his rickshaw and rescues her.

* Robert Sheckley's ''[[Mindswap]]''. That method of looking for Ze Kraggash actually pays off. Somewhat.

** And in the film, they just happen to apparate right in the middle of of a group of snatchers.

* In [[Dan Simmons]]' ''[[Ilium]]'' and ''Olympos'' this is justified and deconstructed. Everyone lives close to the teleporters all across the planet because there is no need to go very far from them. The unfortunate result is that they've managed to forget about the entire rest of the planet.

* [[Older Than Radio]]: In Fielding's ''[[Tom Jones]]'', characters who are travelling separately are forever running into each other at [[You All Meet in An Inn|inns]] along the road. Critics have tried to [[Justified Trope|justify]] these remarkably convenient coincidences by making learned references to the average speed of a stagecoach and the density of coaching inns along the major roads in Georgian England.

** Jaden Korr (of [[Jedi Academy]] fame) happens to be in precisely correct spot in all of space to intercept an Old Republican jedi master who was flung into the future due to a hyperdrive malfunction.

 

* In ''[[Sliders]]'', they would always randomly appear in the precise place and time where four strangers could, over the course of a few hours, completely alter the way of life on the planet. (We did briefly see the Sliders in universes where they had no particular impact, usually at the very start of an episode. Presumably, there were any number of such banal slides and the network was only showing us the [[Your Mileage May Vary|interesting]] ones.)

** [[Discussed Trope|Discussed]] in one of the first episode, where the professor tries to see which way they should go: should they interfere, are they sent there by a form of God, or should they take up a "[[Star Trek|First Commandment]]" or sorts of not interfering. They chuck it out the window in favor of [[Rule of Cool|doing whatever they want]] or [[Omniscient Morality License|what they consider moral]].

* ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', where those who live in deadly fear of the human-eating Wraith never move away from (or block) the stargate the Wraith ships emerge from - generally making it easy for the ships to fill their human quota in about half an hour.

** Well, considering that when they ''do'' do those things, the Wraith come in from space and bomb the place to hell, it might make more sense.

** For example, despite having an entire planet to argue over, the Thals and the Kaleds apparently live within walking (or gliding) distance of each other in ''Genesis of the Daleks''.

* In one episode of ''[[Farscape]]'', Zhaan searches for her missing crewmembers by ''asking a bartender'' on a random planet nearby. Because clearly there is only one bar on the entire planet which they could have visited if they had been there, which, thankfully, they did not.

** In the case of Tatooine(desert planet) and Manaan(water planet), there were only one setlement on each planet, so there really wasn't anywhere else to go. Also on Tatooine, when finding the Star Map there is really no way to know how far it was before you find the cave containing the map, especially given that you are unable to travel there without a map. Also on Taris(city planet), you and Bastila both ejected from the same ship at roughly the same time, meaning it would be highly unlikely for you to end up in different locations. Everything else that you encounter is largely related to Bastila's capture. Although the fact that you travel to Tatooine of all places is really an example of this.

* [[The King of Fighters]] meta-series has several of the oldest fighters (Takuma, Saisyu, Chin, etc.) having either known each other superficially or being old friends. Specially, [[Art of Fighting|Takuma Sakazaki]] knew [[Fatal Fury|Jeff Bogard]] rather well, and he also was an acquintance of Kyo Kusanagi's father Saisyu; also, Chin Gentsai was an old friend of [[Fatal Fury|Tung Fu Rue]]. ** Noticeable in that the "Takuma knew Saisyu" angle was pure [[Fanon]] at first, then became canon.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==